After the Breach
by makoRa
Summary: Raleigh and Mako succeeded where no other Rangers could: they closed the Breach and saved the world. But what comes next? There's always been an attraction between them, but is it a Drift hangover or something real? When there are no Kaiju to kill or ranger duties to fulfill, will they function as a couple or push each other away and continue the search for danger and adventure?
1. Chapter 1

Mako opened her eyes, squinting at the sudden brightness of the sky after so long in the dark depths of the ocean. She blinked rapidly, trying to orient herself in the sudden onslaught of fresh, salty air and sunshine, and sorting through the rush of images coming back to her. She bolted upright, rapidly looking around to find the one she needed. The one who had to be there. Seeing nothing but open ocean, she stood up on the floating device to see further, but still nothing. She tried to quell the panic growing inside her. Surely- _surely_ , he hadn't stayed behind? He must have come right behind her, sending his pod ejecting right after hers. But where was he?

She took a shaky breath and tried to remain calm and think rationally, nearly jumping out of her skin when a loud splash came from behind her, cutting through the silence like a gunshot. Without any conscious decision, she leapt from her pod into the ocean, swimming frantically in its direction. In no time she was pulling herself up and straddling Raleigh's escape pod, grabbing hold of the release and sending the lid flying off. She felt the blood drain from her face when she saw him, his eyes closed and his body still.

"I can't find his pulse," she said to whomever might be listening on the other end of her radio. "I don't think he's breathing." She called his name over and over, pleading with him to wake up, ignoring the response she heard in her ear from the team back at the Shatterdome.

"Listen, Mako, there's a chance the sensors aren't working-"

She batted the words aside, bending over and shoving her arms under Raleigh's back and hauling him up towards her. She tried to stifle the sobs rising in her chest to no avail. She crushed him to her chest, silently praying to whomever might be listening that he not leave her. Grief for her father bubbled just below the surface of her thoughts, and she couldn't lose Raleigh, too. Not today.

"Don't go," she sobbed, "Don't go."

She buried her face in his shoulder, the tears falling freely from her eyes and mixing with the salt water on her cheeks. She couldn't live without him. She couldn't; not after all they had shared together, both in the Drift and out. She didn't understand the depth of her feelings in that instant, but she didn't care. She felt hysteria rising in her chest the longer his silence went on, and she silently begged whatever god might be out there to let him live. A sudden tension in his limp body made her freeze, her breath catching in her throat.

"You're…squeezing me too tight," Raleigh's voice came out in a muffled rasp against her shoulder. She pulled back from him immediately, and his hazel eyes found her brown ones.

"I couldn't breathe…" he told her, a slow grin sliding up onto his face. Mako let out a gasp that turned into a laugh as she stared at him, hearing the distant sound of cheers coming from the communication device still transmitting in her ear from the Shatterdome.

She and Raleigh simply stared at each other, something she couldn't name passing between them as the silent air slowly filled with the sound of their rescuers heading toward them. The voice in her ear said help was on the way, but she ignored it. What did it matter, really, as long as he was awake? He was alive, and the relief that swept through her was almost painful, leaving behind an exhaustion that was bone-deep. Almost unconsciously, the pair leaned towards each other, their foreheads meeting in the middle of the space between them and just existing there together. With his skin against hers, her world felt complete, if only for the moment. She closed her eyes and let out a slow, shaky breath as the sound of the approaching helicopters grew nearer.

The few moments they spent with their heads together seemed to last a lifetime, to Mako, at least. She felt a crushing sort of relief at Raleigh's closeness to her, and she somehow wanted to be even closer. Her head felt jumbled and cloudy, full of thoughts and memories and feelings that both were and were not her own. She did not know how to put it into words, but she knew instinctively that she didn't need to; Raleigh could feel what she felt and understood her without needing to hear her say a word.

He pulled her closer, wrapping her in his arms and burying his face in her hair. She felt tears brimming in her eyes and bit her lip to keep them from falling, but they did anyway, sliding down her cheeks one by one. She turned her face away from Raleigh's and took a shaky breath, trying desperately to get herself under control even though she knew it was useless to try and hide from him. He sensed her mood and tilted her chin back towards him, bringing her eyes to his.

"We're safe now, Mako," he whispered, brushing away a tear with his thumb and bringing his forehead back to rest against hers, "We made it back."

She nodded numbly, swallowing hard and trying not to think, though not succeeding at all.

 _You will always find me in the drift..._

She let out one small, quiet sob as she remembered her father's final words to her. She knew that Raleigh knew what she was thinking when he held her even tighter and whispered in her ear "He loved you so much. He went out on his own terms and saved the world while he was at it, like the hero he always was. Remember him that way."

Mako nodded silently, pulling herself away from him and roughly wiping off her face as the soft hum of the helicopters grew to a harsh buzz as they arrived overhead. She looked up, squinting into the sun and sea spray rising around her to see one helicopter stopped directly above them, with one man in a harness attached to a line, quickly repelling down towards them. Wordlessly, Raleigh pulled away from her, giving her a quick once-over as the rescuer landed on the pod behind her, trying his best not to jostle it. Raleigh held her by the shoulders and spoke over her head to the rescuer, "Take her first."

Mako's eyes widened as she felt a clip being attached to the back of her ranger suit, the rescuer winding one arm around her waist in preparation for their ascent into the helicopter. Her hands tightened around Raleigh's upper arms, suddenly unwilling to be separated from him. Raleigh gave her a small smile in response, quickly pressing his forehead to hers once again and whispering "It's okay. I'm right behind you. We won't be apart for long."

She didn't know how he knew about her fear of being separated from him, but he did. She took a deep breath and nodded at him, releasing his arms and closing her eyes briefly as her feet left the pod and became airborne, tugged along with the rescuer like a fish on a hook. She watched Raleigh grow smaller and smaller as the distance between them increased, but his eyes never left hers. In a matter of minutes, she was secured in the chopper and he was being pulled aboard, the rescuer insisting on doing a triage on both of them. By some miracle, neither had sustained any serious injuries in their time in the Jaeger, either above sea level or below, and they were each given nothing but a mild pain reliever and an ice pack for the ride back to base.

Mako sat stock still, trying desperately not to think about anything that had happened in the last 24 hours, feeling debilitating grief just waiting to seep in. She sat in her seat, her back ramrod straight, staring ahead without seeing anything. She felt the pressure when Raleigh laid his hand gently on her leg, and she covered his hand with hers without conscious thought. She closed her eyes and leaned back into her seat, thinking that maybe if she could fall asleep at least she would be able to stop thinking for a while. Raleigh's hand on her leg provided a comforting sort of weight, and she slowly drifted off.

She woke suddenly, jolted by the sudden landing of the chopper on solid ground, the blades coming to a stop and the crew beginning to unclasp their seatbelts. She felt disoriented, looking around in confusion at the people around her and feeling panic starting to well in her chest as her heart rate began to increase. She inhaled sharply as a dark mass hovered over her, triggering some deep-seated claustrophobic instinct buried deep inside her subconscious.

"It's okay," came Raleigh's quiet declaration, "I'm here."

His scent filled her nose, creating a sense of calm that she had not expected. His fingers deftly unbuckled her safety harness and gripped her hands, gently pulling her to her feet. He slung an arm around her narrow shoulders as they headed towards the exit of the helicopter, gripping her tighter as they stepped down onto the tarmac. He held her the entire time they walked, from the landing strip to the top of the Shatterdome, and, despite her usual dislike of physical contact, she did not push him away.

After what seemed like an eternity, they entered the Drivesuit Room and were immediately swarmed by what seemed like a battalion of technicians, all chattering excitedly, never seeming to realize that their pilots longed only for quiet solitude. Raleigh knew they needed the techs' help to get out of their Drivesuits, but that didn't mean he was happy to see them.

A quiet, dry sob escaped from Mako as Raleigh steered her to a quiet corner of the room, free of personnel. She tried her best to stifle it, covering her mouth and averting her gaze from the technicians around her, but she knew it was no good.

"Can we have a minute, please?" Raleigh's loud voice was both polite request and firm demand, leaving no room for protest. He had no authority here, but Mako knew that nobody would challenge him. Not today. Not after what they had done at the Breach.

The people around him quickly faded away, retreating to the other end of the room and doing their best to remain quiet. Mako was sure they hovered within earshot of her and Raleigh, but she didn't really care. She looked up at Raleigh through eyes that were slowly brimming with tears, biting down on her wobbling lip as hard as she could to keep the tears from falling.

"Come here," he said, his voice gentle now. He held her to his chest, letting her bury her face against it as the tears began leaking from her eyes. Raleigh held her tight as another sob escaped from her, pressing her face into his chest. He stepped back from her for a moment, sitting down on one of the nearby desk chairs and pulling her into his lap. She froze, not used to being so close to anyone, but his hand began stroking her hair so gently that she relaxed almost instinctively. Her father's final words flashed through her mind yet again, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the memory, trying desperately not to think. She had a feeling that Raleigh could tell what was going through her mind, because his arms tightened even more around her. The pressure was almost painful now, but she was glad of it nonetheless.

"Does it ever go away?" she whispered. She didn't think she needed to clarify that she meant the pain she was feeling from her loss. Raleigh stiffened ever so slightly, and she wondered whether that was an offensive question to ask, but he took a few breaths before answering.

"Not entirely, no. But it gets a little easier every day. You'll wake up one day and find that you don't have quite such a deep, empty void inside your soul. I miss my brother every day...but I guess now I can remember the good things about him and try and focus on that instead of…what happened to him."

He got quiet then, and she took a shaky breath as she tried to get herself under control.

"It's okay to be sad," he continued. "It's important, even. You need to mourn your father and be sad that he's gone, because you can't move on without accepting that first. I wouldn't accept Yancy's death for a long time, and it made it impossible to heal. It's the reason I left the Jaeger program and took on dangerous jobs that nobody else would do. It was a downward spiral...and I won't let you go down that path, too."

He said the last part so seriously that a shiver ran down her spine, and she took one last deep breath, inhaling his now-familiar scent, taking comfort in his closeness. She nodded into his shoulder, the only response she could make at the moment, and he gave her a gentle squeeze. She looked up at him as she wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to make a weak sort of smile, and he returned a sad one of his own.

"Now," he said, "Let's call those technicians back over to help us out of these suits and we can get out of here."

Once they were out of their Drivesuits, Raleigh and Mako headed towards the barracks, outfitted in borrowed uniforms that they had been given by a helpful technician. Having finally shaken off everyone who wanted to have a moment of their time, they enjoyed the quiet of each other's company. Raleigh supposed it was natural to want to speak with or be close to those who had succeeded in helping to close the Breach and effectively ending the biggest threat to the world as they knew it, but it didn't make him want to speak to anyone. Luckily, it was near-impossible for any outsiders to gain access to the inner areas of the Shatterdome, and he and Mako took comfort in the silence as they headed towards their respective rooms.

He felt jumpy and hot, like his skin was too tight and he could not bear the thought of sitting still. He supposed it was the lingering adrenaline from the past several hours, but part of him felt sure that Mako was at the center of the feelings. She walked beside him like a zombie, her eyes glazed over and staring straight ahead without really seeing anything. He should know what to say, but he didn't. He had worn that same expression after Yancy died, and nothing anyone did or said had made a bit of difference.

He could feel her sadness inside his mind, a side effect from the Drift, and he did his best to push it aside. He wanted to be there for Mako, and he could not do that if he succumbed to the grief alongside her. He felt sadness at the loss of Marshal Pentecost, to be sure, but not in the way she did. He looked at her for probably the tenth time in the last two minutes, glancing sideways at her without turning his head as they walked side by side. She was biting her lip again, hinting that she was ready to dissolve into tears at any moment. He hesitated for a second, then gently laced his fingers through hers, ready to let her go immediately if she protested the contact. She looked down at their joined hands, then lifted her gaze to his. She looked puzzled, but not irritated, and allowed his hand to continue holding hers.

"You should eat," he said abruptly. He was not sure why the thought popped into his head, but as soon as the words left his mouth he realized that he was hungry, too. And he was desperate to be doing something of use. "We both should. I know you're probably not hungry, but skipping food won't help us any." He took the next turn in the hallway, guiding them towards the mess hall.

It was the middle of dinner time now, and the place would be full. He felt her hesitation as they arrived at the door, hearing the crowd of people inside, and felt her desire to stay away from the crowd of people who would be waiting to ambush them, both to demand details of their adventures that day, and to give thanks and congratulations for them. He stopped short of entering the door, then quickly led her further down the hall to a separate door that he knew from his time in the Jaeger program led directly to the kitchen. He pushed through the swinging door, pleased to find only a few people working in their immediate vicinity.

He saw recognition flash across the faces of those working closest to the door, and he placed a finger over his lips in a silent request that they not give away his presence. Sitting Mako down on a small stool in the corner, he walked up to a woman wearing the white outfit of a chef.

"Have you got anything we can take with us to eat elsewhere?" He asked, flashing her a smile. "We really don't want to be bogged down by all the chaos in the kitchen tonight. Can you help us out?"

The chef smiled and nodded. "I imagine you wouldn't want to go in there just now. I'll get a few things you can take with you." She set about pulling a few things from her counter and stovetop, assembling a quick meal and placing it inside takeout boxes, and then inside a large paper bag. She added a couple small desserts from the fridge to the top of the bag, then handed it to Raleigh, along with two bottles of water. "This should do for both of you. If you ever want to eat without the crowd, you can always come here." She smiled kindly and added quietly, "Thank you for your service."

Raleigh gave her a small smile in response and took the bag, turning around to see Mako staring blankly at the wall. He held out his had, waiting for a moment while she focused on it before placing her hand in his and standing up to follow him out of the kitchen. He led them back to her quarters, waiting patiently by her side as she unlocked the door and then following her inside. She immediately sat down on the bed and put her elbows on her knees, bending over and placing her face in her hands and taking a few deep breaths. Raleigh cracked open a bottle of water and sat beside her, placing a hand on her knee and pushing the bottle into her hands.

He pulled the bag of food onto his lap while she took a small sip and removed a takeout style box of noodles and a pair of chopsticks. "Will you eat?" He looked at her as he cracked the chopsticks apart and opened the lid of the box, grabbing a chunk of noodles. She looked at him doubtfully and made a small shrug; he took the signal to give her the noodles. She bit her lip again, but opened her mouth as he held the noodles out to her like she was a toddler, and cracked a small smile at the silliness of the gesture. They sat there on her bed for a while, him feeding her noodles and Mako feeding him bites of dessert in turn, both of them laughing quietly together. He knew it was only a matter of time until the grief hit her with full force, and he wanted to delay it as long as he could.

Eventually, though, she began to fade. Her eyes became less and less focused, and it was taking a great deal of effort for her to keep sitting upright.

"Mako," Raleigh said, "Why don't you get ready for bed? You really need to sleep. We both do."

Her eyes darted up to his, and he registered the fear in them at once. "I don't want to sleep," she said in a panicked sort of whisper, her eyes focused and alert now. "If I sleep, dreams will come for me and I…I'm afraid of what I'll see." Her voice was nearly inaudible at the end, and Raleigh knew how much it cost her to admit that fear, even to him.

"Listen, Mako. I'll sit here with you until you fall asleep, okay? Would that make you feel better?" He would be happy to stay here all night, but he felt that might be crossing a line with her. He knew she was not one for physical contact, even if she had relaxed that standard slightly for him, and he felt like offering to share her bed might throw her into a panic. In this moment, he knew instinctively that it would.

"I'll just sit here in your chair," he continued, hopping off the bed and into the plain wooden desk chair that was sitting a few feet away. He arranged his face into an expression of determined innocence, and she let out a small giggle. It eased a tightness in his chest to hear that small sound, and he relaxed just a little more.

She smiled faintly and nodded her agreement to his offer, then stood up and cleared away the food containers from her bed, placing them in the small recycling box she kept near the door. She turned to her dresser and opened the drawer that held her pajamas and pulled out a small pair of shorts and a spaghetti strap tank top. She debated briefly just getting changed right there, but quickly dismissed it and headed into the small bathroom that adjoined her room.

Why had she even considered stripping down in front of Raleigh? Not that she was overly modest; after all, she had lived in what basically amounted to a barrack with a dozen others while she was in the Jaeger training program, so she had gotten used to not having much privacy. But this was _Raleigh_ she was talking about; why would she _want_ him to see her without clothes, even if it was only a brief glimpse? She shook her head and quickly pulled removed the clothes she had been given in the Drivesuit room and swapped them for the pajamas. It felt better, being in her own clothes instead of the borrowed, ill-fitting ones that made her feel like a kid playing dress-up. She admitted that the borrowed clothes had been warmer, and she felt a chill run through her as the air conditioning kicked on, causing goosebumps to rise on her skin. She looked down at her chest and wondered if she should put her bra back on, but she dismissed the idea at once. They were hardly even noticeable, and she was far more comfortable without it on, anyway, so she tossed the clothes she wasn't wearing into the small hamper before heading back out to the bedroom.

He was still sitting there in her desk chair, looking around her room in interest. She didn't have many personal things in here, aside from a few family photos and some Jaeger schematics from when she had first begun working in the program. His eyes rested on the large Gypsy Danger photo she had tacked up near the desk, his expression unreadable. She walked over to him and placed a hand softly on his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

It occurred to her that he had a long history with that Jaeger in particular, and she wondered how it made him feel that it was at the bottom of the ocean now. Hell, even deeper than that, really. He jumped slightly at the feel of her touch, but quickly relaxed when he looked up at her face.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Just...thinking about Gypsy and everything. I guess it's weird to think I'll never see her again, after all the time I spent in there. First with Yancy and then with you..." he trailed off, looking embarrassed. "It's silly, being nostalgic over a machine. It's just hardware." He sounded like he was trying hard to convince himself of those words.

Mako smiled down at him. "I don't think so," she said gently. "She was part of you for a long time. I think it's normal to feel sad about her being gone. I feel that way, too. Both because I worked on refurbishing her and because of piloting her. It's a kind of loss, I guess."

He gave her a small smile in return, and Mako saw his eyes widen slightly as they passed over the hardened buds poking out from under her shirt. She blushed and quickly pulled her hand back and folded her arms over her the area, turning towards the bed as she did so. She pulled the covers back and slid into them, comforted by the familiarity of the bed sheets. Raleigh still had a small smile on his face, but he said nothing. He stood up and pulled his chair over until it was right next to the bed. He laid his hand over hers before he sat back down.

"Do you think you'll be able to sleep? I have some sleep aids in my room if you want one."

She shrugged and said, "I'll try without them for now." She gave him a sleepy sort of smile as she closed her eyes, cuddling into her blankets but leaving her hand outside the covers so his hand still covered hers.

After a few minutes, her breathing slowed and regulated, and Raleigh could tell she had finally found some peace in her dreams. Though he was beginning to feel the tingling sensation in his arm that told him that the extremity was falling asleep, he didn't want to let go of her. A silly thought, but there it was all the same. He sat there, contemplating the feelings he felt surging inside him, trying to sort through which ones were his and which belonged to Mako. He felt calmness on the edge of his consciousness, which he supposed she was feeling now that she was asleep.

There was a strange desire inside him to stay close to her; he imagined crawling into the bed next to her, wrapping his large, muscular body around her smaller, softer one. The thought was entirely too desirable to him, and he shook his head to try and rid himself of the image. He couldn't tell what feelings were real, and which were the result of the Drift and everything that had happened in the last few days. Shared trauma could create feelings like these between copilots, he knew, but was that what was happening? He had been attracted to Mako since they first met, particularly after their first sparring match, so it was not entirely a trauma-based attraction. Not for him.

He sighed. He was not going to get this all sorted out tonight, and even if he did figure out his feelings…he had no idea what hers would be. He gently disentangled his hand from hers, pausing as she made a small sighing sound and mumbled something in her sleep. He walked to the door to her room and opened it as quietly as he could, and was out on the step before her mumbled word had really registered.

"Raleigh."

He smiled and closed the door quietly behind him, walking the few feet across the hall and heading to his own room, wondering if he'd be able to fall asleep at all that night.


	2. Chapter 2

Mako woke suddenly, body shaking and tangled in the sheet, cold sweat covering her face. She didn't know what had happened in her dream, but residual fear gripped her body and mind, leaving her fairly certain of what the dream had entailed. She felt panicked, unable to sit still, and kicked the blankets off her body onto the floor. She sat bolt upright in bed, adrenaline surging through her body and making it impossible to lie still. She jumped up, not thinking about what she was doing but running on some sort of autopilot mode she hadn't experienced in years. She rushed to the large metallic door of her room and threw it open, darting into the hallway and pulling it shut behind her.

She stood on the step to her room, heart pounding and breath racing, not sure what she was doing. Was she awake, or sleepwalking? The haze in her brain made it impossible to tell, but the fear created by her nightmare hovered at the edge of her consciousness and pushed her forward. She stumbled down the stairs and crossed the narrow hallway to the door directly across from hers. To Raleigh. She hovered on the steps to his room, slowly starting to wake from her night terror, trying desperately to think rationally, but couldn't quite get there.

She tapped quietly on the door, the small gesture making a sound that seemed loud enough to wake the entire wing. She winced at the volume of the noise, and debated whether she would be able to rush back to her own room before he opened the door. Maybe he was still asleep…she turned away from his door to look back at her own, but then heard the metallic clicks that signaled the door was being unlocked from within.

A chill ran through her, and she didn't know whether it was due to residual fear caused by the dream or…something else. She turned back to the door and saw him standing there, framed in the dark doorway and staring at her blearily. She froze, unsure what she should do or say, or even if there was anything she should do or say.

"Mako?" His voice was a hoarse, tired rasp. "What's the matter?"

She didn't move. What _was_ the matter? She couldn't remember. She didn't know what was wrong, just that she'd had to get out of that room as soon as she could. She froze.

"I…I-" she tried desperately to think of something to say, an explanation for this bizarre behavior. She had never set foot inside his room before, and certainly never visited him in the middle of the night. She had never visited _anyone_ at this time of night…

"Mako." His voice was more firm, but kind as he tried to get her to focus on him. "Did you have a nightmare?"

She nodded silently, not sure why she was responding or how he knew what must have happened, but understanding somehow that it was the right thing to do. He gave a small, sympathetic sort of smile and reached out and touched her face, rubbing his thumb gently over her cheekbone. She felt blood rushing to her face, not sure what she was feeling or why, but wanting it to continue all the same. He opened the door wider and stepped to the side, a silent invitation

"Why don't you come in?" he asked when she showed no sign of moving. Her eyes darted up to his, seeing a soft sort of kindness there, as though he knew exactly what she had dreamed about, even when she did not. She took a hesitant step forward, and his hand slid from her cheek down around her shoulders, guiding her inside his room and closing the door behind her as quietly as he could. Her eyes darted around the room, seeing that the lamp on his bedside table was on and wondering whether he had already been awake when she had first knocked. Her gaze finally landed back on his, and she felt the flush rising in her cheeks as her eyes met his. She didn't understand her body's reaction to his look, but she shoved it aside.

"I'm not really sure why I came over here," she blurted out, trying desperately to relax.

"You had a nightmare," he said, speaking as though it were fact. Mako reminded herself that he had been through as much as she had, and then some, so he would know what she was feeling even without having seen into her mind during the drift.

She nodded slowly, trying to use her usual breathing exercises to slow her heartbeat. What was happening to her? Was her heart rate due to the dream or…something else? He gave her another sympathetic smile, his expression telling her that he understood her unspoken conflict.

"It's okay, Mako," he said quietly, "I understand. We can understand each other in a different way, now that we've drifted together. I know that you feel it, too."

Still, she said nothing. She couldn't bring herself to say anything out loud; not about the trauma she was feeling after having to kill the Kaiju, not about the residual terror she felt after going down to the Breach, and not about her father. And certainly not about this strange new anxiety she was feeling, which she was beginning to suspect had something to do with her proximity to Raleigh.

Shirtless Raleigh. Shirtless, warm, protective Raleigh, who was standing here ready to keep her safe, even if only from her dreams. She bit her lip, her nervous habit coming out once again. Was it her imagination, or were his eyes focusing on her mouth more than strictly necessary? Did that mean something? Her breath caught in her throat once again, and she suspected that it wasn't due to fear of whatever nightmare had plagued her this evening. What was wrong with her? She had never felt any sort of…attraction towards anyone before. Was this what attraction felt like?

She tilted her face up towards his, surprised at how close his face suddenly was to hers. She felt his warm breath in her face, and she took a small, unconscious step forward, bringing her right up to him. It was his turn to freeze; did she really hear that catch in his breath, or was it wishful thinking?

"Raleigh?" Her voice was a whisper, barely audible even to herself, but she knew instinctively that he heard her.

"...yeah?" his response sounded strangled and nervous. Was that bad?

"Raleigh, I-" she broke off, suddenly panicking.

She didn't know what made her do it, but she stood up on her tip toes and brushed her lips against his.

He froze, and at that moment she knew she had miscalculated. She had made a huge mistake. Her eyes widened and she immediately pulled away as though she had been burned, frantically looking around for a quick escape.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, sounding slightly hysterical, "I thought-"

His hands came up to her face, cupping her cheeks and gently pulling her face back to his, bringing his mouth down on hers. He kissed her hungrily, his tongue parting her lips before she really knew what was happening. She'd been kissed a few times before, but never anything like this. She shyly opened her mouth and allowed his tongue to tangle with hers, her breaths coming quicker as he did so. She pressed her body against his, her hands on his hips and pulling them towards her own. Her experience being extremely limited, she didn't really know what she was doing, but her body seemed to have a mind of its own at this point in time.

His body was nothing but hard lines and roped muscle compared to her soft, gentle curves, and she felt heat pooling in her lower body as his hardened pelvis met hers. She felt herself shaking slightly, a tremor that had nothing to do with a nightmare and everything to do with what was pressed up against her inner thighs. She gyrated ever so slightly, creating a small amount of friction between the two of them, enjoying the small gasp that left his lips when she did so. The movement gave her another pulse between her legs, making her crave more, so she did it again.

This time, however, he pulled back. "Mako…" he said, looking at her with a strange expression that was somewhere between desire and…anguish? "We can't do this."

Her heart sank; she should have known. She pulled back from him immediately and tried to regain her wits while quelling the swell of embarrassment that was quickly taking over. He had just been trying to comfort her when she showed up on his doorstep in the middle of the night, and she had accosted him out of nowhere. What had possessed her to do it, she would never know, but she had to get out of here. Now.

"I'm sorry," she said for the second time, "I should go." She turned towards the door and stepped quickly away from Raleigh, reaching out for the handle and pulling it open as quickly as she could.

"Mako, wait." Raleigh placed a hand on the door, preventing her from opening it further.

She felt like she might die from the embarrassment. "Please just let me go," she pleaded in a whisper, "I just want to go to bed."

She couldn't bring herself to look him in the face, so she averted her gaze to the hallway, looking at the door to her own room and cursing herself for leaving it in the first place. What was wrong with her? Why - _why_ \- had she thought that it was a good idea to come here? She knew from her years at the Jaeger academy that it was common for strong feelings to develop between copilots, even ones that seemed romantic in nature, and she should have ignored anything she had felt for Raleigh since they returned from the Breach. It was natural for things like this to happen after that sort of trauma, but what had possessed her to go to his room in the middle of the night like a…booty call? That was not a phrase she herself had ever used, but she had heard it from other cadets, and she was sure that this situation would qualify.

"Mako, please. Just look at me, will you?" Raleigh's voice was a plea, and she reluctantly turned her face towards his, afraid of the rejection she knew she would see there. But it wasn't rejection she saw there. Instead, it was some sort of sympathy, which might even be worse. Her gaze hardened.

"What?" she snapped. He sighed, but did not seem deterred by her tone.

"Mako." he said her name like a statement, "I don't want you to go."

She stared at him blankly. "What are you talking about? You told me to stop…" she trailed off, feeling stupid for even thinking the words, let alone saying them out loud.

"I didn't say to stop," he corrected her calmly, "I said we _can't_ do this. Not that I don't want to."

She continued to stare at him. "I don't understand," she stated, not sure whether he was serious, or simply trying to spare her the embarrassment of turning her down flat-out.

"Mako," he said, sounding a little exasperated, "You can feel things that I feel. You know I want this, too...don't you?" He sounded suddenly uncertain as he finished the thought. Mako remained silent, not sure what she should say, so he continued. "Look, we have feelings for each other. I know I have them for you, and I can feel that you have them for me. But the time to act on them is not right after a huge trauma. I don't want you to regret any of this. I know you haven't been with anyone before, and this isn't a good time to change that. Not yet."

Mako hung her head, averting her eyes in embarrassment. Was it that obvious? She knew he had been with women, having seen flashes of them in the Drift, but was it so easy for him to tell that she had no real experience of her own? She had never really thought about it until now; nobody had ever really sparked her interest, and even if they had, who would want to go near the only daughter of one of the most respected (or, perhaps more accurately, feared) Marshals that the Defense Corps had ever seen? Nobody, she was sure.

She felt Raleigh's hand cupping her chin, tilting it back up so she was looking him in the eyes. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about, Mako. I don't care that you haven't been with anyone before. But I don't want you to regret it later if we do something now, while you're upset and hurting. I can feel the pain you're feeling now, and I won't take advantage of that. Do you understand?"

His voice was so tender and kind that her embarrassment seemed to slowly fade away, and she nodded slowly up at him.

"Okay," he said quietly, leaning down and placing a soft kiss on her forehead, "Okay. Good. Will you still stay with me tonight? Please."

She wondered if he was asking for her sake, or if he was being chased by his own nightmares. She nodded again as he closed and locked the door, and she let him lead her to his bed. He pulled back the covers and slid in first, holding them up so she could lay down beside him before covering them both. She lay stiffly, not really sure what she should be doing. She had never shared a bed before; should she stay on one side, or get closer to him? What was the protocol for this sort of interaction?

Raleigh seemed to know what she was thinking, and said quietly "Why don't you come over here by me? You'll be warmer."

She heard the smile in his voice, and felt a blush rising once again in her cheeks when she realized she had come over here in nothing but her short pajama bottoms and a thin-strapped tank top, but she moved closer to him nonetheless. She turned over on her side, facing away from him as she tried to preserve just a small amount of her usual modesty. She felt the mattress dip a little and knew he was moving closer to her, and she tensed as she felt his strong, warm arm wrap around her waist.

"Is this okay?" he whispered in her ear, causing a chill to run down her spine and goosebumps to rise on her arms and legs. She nodded silently and tried to relax as he laid his large palm over her stomach and gently tugged her towards him. His chest was right up against her back now, and her body seemed to meld with his under the covers. She felt his warm breath on her neck as he buried his face into her hair and inhaled deeply, his body seeming to relax as he did so. She cautiously placed her hand over his, unsure whether or not to keep it there, but his fingers immediately laced through hers and made the decision for her. She began to relax then, his familiar scent now a source of comfort to her. She breathed in deeply, inhaling the musky scent of his pillow and allowing her eyes to drift shut, somehow sure that now that she was in Raleigh's arms, the nightmares would stay away.

. . . . . .

 _Her body felt flushed, heat spreading through her and pooling between her legs. Her breath came in heavy pants as she tried to regain her bearings, her shoulders flat on the bed but her back arching upward, bringing her chest towards his. His blonde hair fell into his eyes, brushing her forehead as he brought his face towards hers. He rubbed his nose against hers, the gesture surprisingly intimate, before quickly bringing his mouth down on hers. His kiss was demanding and rough, and she feasted on the feel of his tongue exploring her mouth. She gasped as he pulled back, even more turned on by the look in his eyes; the appraising glance that he was giving her, as though trying to decide what part of her he wanted to taste next._

 _His hand caressed her cheek and then moved down her body, cupping her breast before continuing on down her side, heading towards her center. His mouth moved to her neck, kissing it lightly and then beginning to suck, gently at first and then more desperately. She gasped when she felt his teeth grazing the delicate skin, and even more when his palm reached its destination, slipping inside the thin material of her shorts and covering the silky underwear she had on underneath. A strong finger stroked her there, and she felt a thrill going through her whole body as though it were an electric current. She wanted more, but she didn't know how to name what she was looking for, let alone how to tell him. She allowed one of her hands to wind into his hair, gripping it tightly and holding him closer to her, desperate to keep his mouth doing whatever it was doing to make her feel this way._

 _He groaned loudly against her neck, his thumb rubbing her harder while he used the rest of his hand to push her legs further apart. She opened them gladly, desperate for him to keep going and turning her head to the side to give him better access to her neck. He increased the pressure of his mouth on her neck, simultaneously rubbing his thumb in small, rough circles around her clit. The combined sensations made her moan out loud, and her hand reached up to his shoulder almost reflexively, pulling him down on top of her. The weight of his body on hers felt strange, but so, so right. She widened her legs further, bringing her knees up around his hips as she felt the pressure of his hardened pelvis between her legs—_

"Raleigh," Mako gasped, jolting awake with a start. She was sweaty and hot, tangled with bedsheets, blankets, and Raleigh. The bedside lamp was still on, and in its dim glow she saw his eyes fly open, and the shock in his face mirrored her own. His body was on top of hers, his hips in between her knees, his hand buried beneath the waistband of her shorts. Had she been awake the entire time, or dreaming? Had all of that actually happened? Mako felt panic rising and wasn't quite sure why. She tried to get ahold of herself, but it was difficult with his face so close to hers, not to mention the placement of his hand. She was torn between the lingering arousal from the dream - _was it a dream?_ \- and the anxiety that she had done something else to make things awkward between herself and Raleigh.

"Mako," Raleigh's voice came out like a hiss as he whipped his hand out of her shorts and quickly lifted himself off of her, "Did I- Jesus, Mako. I'm so sorry, I don't know what came over me-" He scooted away from her, sitting up in bed and staring at her with a horrified expression on his face, "Did I…did I make you-"

"No!" she said hurriedly, shocked that he could think himself capable of such a thing. "No, of course not. I was dreaming, and…and in my dream we were-"

"I know. I think we were having the same dream," Raleigh interrupted, like he was desperate to explain himself. "At least, I thought it was a dream…" He ran a hand roughly through his hair. "Yancy and I used to have the same dreams sometimes after we had Drifted together, but I never thought…" his voice broke off awkwardly.

"Look," Mako said quickly, "It's not a big deal. We both had it in mind before we fell asleep, it just transferred into the dream. That's all."

She was trying to convince herself as well as him, she realized, and she was not sure that she was succeeding. The look in his eyes was almost anguished as he looked at her, certain he had done something to take advantage of her.

"Ral, please stop looking at me like that," she said quietly. "You didn't do anything wrong. If anything, it's my fault for coming over here and coming on to you like I did..."

She sat up, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, creating a barrier in between herself and Raleigh, who still looked pained. He sighed and looked down. "Of course it's not your fault. I wanted it, too. I just don't think the timing is right for us yet."

Mako felt sadness seeping in, but tried to ignore it. He had said "yet," after all, and that meant that there would be a time for them in the future.

"Maybe I should go back to my room," she said halfheartedly. She didn't really want to go, but surely that was better than seeing that look on his face right now.

"No," he said quickly. "No, please don't go. I…I feel better when I'm close to you. I've started to feel anxious when we're apart for long. Is that weird?" He said it all in a rush, as though desperate for her to know it, while also not wanting to admit it.

The corners of her mouth lifted into a small smile at the awkward expression on his face, like a kid confessing a crush and waiting on her reaction. "No," she said, "It's not weird. I feel it, too. But I guess you already know that."

He smiled sheepishly and crawled back to his side of the bed, next to her rather than on top of her. "I'm really sorry, Mako. That must have been scary, waking up with a huge guy on top of you with his hand in your pants…" He broke off awkwardly.

She gave a small snort of laughter, trying tolighten the mood. "If you were dreaming what I was dreaming, you know that wasn't my reaction." She felt his breath come out in a laugh as he laid down behind her once again, burying his face in her hair.

"I guess you're right" he whispered in her ear. "That would seem to suggest that we have some things to look forward to in the future, wouldn't it?"

She grinned into the pillow, lacing her fingers with his once again as she tried to get comfortable. It was difficult now, with the obvious hardness pressing into her backside, but somehow they managed to fall back asleep together, and slept the rest of the night without dreams of any sort.


	3. Chapter 3

The day after the Breach was sealed passed Mako by in a blur. She felt disconnected from herself somehow; she was torn between relief and happiness at having finally completed the mission, and despair and grief at the loss of her Sensei. She felt the grief crushing down on her from all sides, but did her best to remain apart from it in the wake of the celebrations taking place across the globe. She and Raleigh were in the spotlight, and everyone on earth, it seemed, wanted a piece of them. She did her best to grin and bear it. With Raleigh by her side, she felt at least able to do that much.

There was a press conference scheduled in the afternoon, and Raleigh and Mako spent the morning together, trying not to think about it. They woke early, tangled together in Raleigh's bed, still wrapped in the sheets from the night before. Mako felt oddly at ease; considering she had never shared a bed before, and she was now sharing one with _Raleigh Becket_ , she thought she would feel…well, something. Anxiety? Embarrassment? Instead, she felt calm and relaxed, wondering whether she would be able to drift back to sleep and postpone the time where she would have to face the world and everything that had happened to them in the past several days.

She curled her body into a ball, pressing herself into Raleigh's strong, hard chest and pulling his arm tighter around her. She could feel that he was conscious now, but not fully awake, and she felt his arm flex protectively around her as he nuzzled his face into her hair. She smiled at the tenderness of the action, snuggling deeper into the covers, determined to make the moment last just a little bit longer.

Eventually, though, she couldn't hide under the covers anymore. She slid out of bed, walking quietly into the bathroom to rinse off her face, pulling a hand towel out of Raleigh's linen closet to pat it dry. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, thinking her eyes looked puffy and a little sad, but that there was otherwise nothing noteworthy about her appearance. Except that when her gaze travelled downward and she saw what looked like a dark purple bruise on her neck. She froze.

 _What the_ -

She flashed back to the previous night, details coming slowly back into focus: Raleigh's hard body on top of hers, his hand in her shorts and his mouth on her neck. Her eyes widened at the thought, realizing where the mark had come from. She heard soft footsteps and looked around, seeing Raleigh walking towards the bathroom, rubbing his eyes sleepily and looking around for her. She looked around at him, pointing at her neck.

"How do I get rid of this?" she squeaked.

She couldn't go in to a press conference with a _hickey_. She would be photographed and televised, and she couldn't do it with that mark on her neck. Maybe her shirt collar would cover it…? Her eyes widened at the train of thought, and she looked to him for an answer. His eyes roamed over her neck and a small, guilty smile rose up across his face. He walked over to her, his hand reaching out and stroking the area gently. She felt chills going down her body, goosebumps rising along the area he was touching.

"Shirt collar, maybe? Or use some makeup?" he said finally. He paused for a moment then added, "Do you even own makeup?"

Mako shook her head dejectedly. She didn't own much of anything that wasn't directly related to her lifelong quest to become a Jaeger pilot. That thought registered and left a strange feeling in her chest; she wouldn't need to _be_ a pilot anymore, and now she didn't know what was left for her. Raleigh's arms circled around her, pulling her close as her morose thoughts crossed his mind, pressing his face into her hair once again.

"We'll figure it out," he said.

She wasn't sure if he was referring to the hickey or their uncertain futures, but she supposed that the response worked for either one. She pulled back from him, rubbing at her eyes with her fists, trying to pull herself together. She knew that it was still early, but she felt keyed up and unable to sit still. She could hear people shouting happily from down the hall, and she guessed that it was people who had stayed up all night to celebrate the end of the Kaiju war. A small part of her mind said that she should go and join in, being that she was part of the team that had ended it, but she just couldn't face the onslaught of questions and comments she knew they would receive.

Raleigh sensed her mood and smiled sympathetically. "Want to go to the Kwoon?"

Mako looked up in surprise, but found herself nodding back at him. Exercise would help, she was sure. She looked down at herself, realizing she was still in the pajamas she had been wearing the night before, and feeling suddenly self conscious. Nobody had seen her in anything less than a Cadet uniform in…well, ever. She folded her arms, covering her chest and mumbled, "I should go put clothes on."

"Okay," Raleigh said, "I'll get dressed and meet you in the hallway. Then we can head over."

He walked with her to the door, his hand placed lightly on the small of her back as he opened the door for her. He looked at her then, lifting his hand and using his thumb to stroke her cheek gently, a small smile on his lips.

"We don't have to go to the Kwoon," he said softly, "We could go out and get breakfast or something, if you'd like…"

She could tell he had no idea what to say to her, both because of what had happened between them the previous night as well as because of the loss of her father. She shook her head and said, "No, I want to go. I'll be ready in a minute."

She looked down the hall as though trying to avoid being seen, then hurried across to her door, quickly opening it and darting inside before pushing it shut behind her.

Raleigh thought about that as he opened his dresser drawer, pulling out the dark blue cargo pants and shirt that were his Ranger uniform. Did she not want to be seen with him?

 _No_ , he thought. She probably didn't want anyone to think they had hooked up last night.

 _Which we didn't_ , he reminded himself. _Not really._

He supposed that was fair enough. He didn't want anyone knowing his personal business, and Mako was more private by far about her personal life than he was. He sighed, quickly stepping into the pants and pulling the shirt over his head before putting on his socks and boots. He reminded himself that she had spent years working harder than anyone else, just to prove that she belonged here in spite of being Marshal Pentecost's daughter, and he didn't want her reputation to be sullied if she was seen leaving his room like she was a booty call.

He shook his head, not really sure what to make of the thoughts running through his head. He headed out into the hallway, closing the door behind him and turning around to see Mako heading out of her room as well. He saw her tuck her dog tags into her standard issue navy blue tank top before she walked down the stairs to meet him. They didn't speak, just walked together in silence to the Kwoon, managing to avoid running into any of the celebrations on the way there.

They found the training room deserted and quiet, much to Mako's relief. Raleigh wouldn't have minded joining in some of the celebrations, but he could feel Mako's need for solitude as if it were his own, and he was happy to be here with her. She immediately walked over to the hanbō storage rack, picking up two of the staffs and giving one to Raleigh. She kicked off her boots, leaving them just outside the mat, before walking towards the middle of the room, doing some formal practice moves as she went.

Raleigh kicked off his own boots and followed her. He wasn't sure she even really wanted to fight, but he could tell she needed some sort of stimulation, so they might as well start here. He swung his staff towards her before she had a chance to get her bearings, and let the staff stop just to the right of her ribs. She narrowed her eyes at his obvious bit of cheating, but didn't seem too irritated with his antics. Yet.

He grinned and said, "One - Zero."

She didn't give him a chance to recover; she immediately swung into action, laying so many attack moves on him that it was all he could do to stay ahead of her. Eventually, she broke through his defenses and gave him a sharp poke in the side.

"Hey!" he protested, rubbing the area, "That hurt!"

She rolled her eyes at him. "One - One."

They sparred like that for the better part of an hour, so well-matched in the ring that they were never more than two points apart. If Raleigh had to make a judgment, he'd say that she was the stronger fighter, even if his size and weight gave him an edge over her at times. The thought made him smile; he liked that she kept him on his toes.

By the time they finished, they were breathless and sweaty, and the sounds of people heading down to breakfast could be heard from the Kwoon as they put their sticks back on the storage rack. Mako sat down on the mat and lay back, stretching herself out and staring up at the ceiling. Raleigh could feel her thoughts heading in a morose direction, so he quickly lay down beside her, placing his face on her stomach and giving it a nibble.

She shrieked in surprise, smacking the top out his head out of reflex. It hurt, but he decided it was worth it as he grinned up at her, seeing her face holding shock and indignation rather than sadness.

"What was that?" she cried, rubbing her stomach and wrinkling her nose at him.

"I just wanted a little taste..." His voice was mischievous, and he pretended to go in for another bite.

"Hey!" She gripped his hair and rugged him back.

"Oooh I didn't know you were into hair pulling. Please don't stop..." he said facetiously. His voice was a little breathy, and it wasn't entirely an act.

She looked at him curiously, her eyes narrowed again. He continued grinning at her, nuzzling his face against her stomach like he was a cat, making her laugh again. She laid her head back down on the mat, stroking his hair absentmindedly as she resumed staring at the ceiling.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked. He didn't really need to ask, given their still-connected minds, but nobody relished the idea that their thoughts weren't private. She took a moment to think about it, then took a deep breath as though steeling herself to speak.

"Just…thinking about how everyone is celebrating and happy. And I just feel like I'm drowning and that I'm going to bring everyone down."

She took a shaky breath, and Raleigh could feel the tears brimming in her eyes as if they were his own. He moved instantly, pulling himself off her stomach and laying on his back, rolling her over so she was cuddled into the crook of his arm.

He held her head to his chest, stroking her hair and kissing her forehead lightly, whispering as he did so, "You have the right to be sad. You _should_ be sad. Part of healing is feeling the sadness and accepting it."

He kissed her forehead again and went on, "Your Sensei was a great man. I knew him for a long time, and he was a great leader and a caring guy, even if he didn't like to show it too often."

He heard Mako sniffle, but was sure there was a small laugh hidden in the sound.

He went on, "He was sick for a long time, as you know. He suffered radiation sickness and then cancer from his time piloting the Jaeger, and the fact that he lived so long after piloting by himself is nothing short of a miracle. I know it doesn't make you feel better right now, but his health was declining quickly. A man like that doesn't want to sit by and let others do the heavy lifting while directing people from the sidelines, even at the best of times. He chose to go down in the Jaeger because he knew he didn't have much time left, and he wanted to save someone else from that fate. He knew he could save us all by doing that."

He could feel Mako's attempts to regulate her breathing now, her tears flowing freely. But she wasn't sobbing like he had expected her to, so that was good. He hugged her tightly, and, somewhat to his surprise, she hugged him back, burying her face in his chest. He brushed his lips across her forehead a few more times, finding he really enjoyed the action, and she didn't push him away. His t-shirt was growing wet in a few spots from her tears, but she was slowly getting a hold on herself, comforted by Raleigh's words and the knowledge behind them.

After a few minutes, she rolled off of him and sat up, rubbing her eyes with her hands. Raleigh felt a little disappointed by the loss of contact but pushed it aside, reminding himself that this wasn't about him right now. He sat up with her, placing a hand tentatively on her back and rubbing it gently.

She didn't look at him but said, "Thank you for saying those things. Even if you are just trying to make me feel better…I can feel that they are true. I suppose it is a better way to look at it, that he was sick already and that this just sped things up a little bit."

She sniffled again, but shook her head and slowly got to her feet. "We need to shower and change. Marshal Hansen's e-mail said we needed to be ready for a press conference at 1400 hours, and I didn't check the time before we came down here."

She sounded flustered; Raleigh knew this must be the first time she hadn't planned out her entire day in recent memory.

"Mako…" he said kindly, "We have plenty of time. It's barely 7 a.m."

She looked shocked, then a little dismayed. "I don't know what to do all day until then…" She looked around the room as though hoping for some sort of sign.

Raleigh brushed her hand with his, clasping it firmly in his when she did not pull away.

"First," he said, smiling at her, "we are going to go and shower and change, because we are both sweaty and gross. Then, we're going to figure out what to do about that little mark of yours and go get some breakfast."

He smiled and stroked the side of her neck affectionately, making her eyes widen and her cheeks flush, giving her a small blush that he found _very_ appealing.

"Come on," he said, pulling her towards the exit. "I'm starving."

. . . . . .

Raleigh lifted his face to the cool water coming from the shower head, thinking carefully as the water slid down his body. He still felt Mako's emotions in his head, a side effect from the Drift that the J-Tech crews referred to as "Ghost Drifting," or, alternatively, the "Drift Hangover." He had experienced it with Yancy before, but not at this level, and he pondered that for a while. Surely, his connection with his own brother should have been stronger than his connection to a stranger? It made him feel almost...disloyal to Yancy that that didn't seem to be the case, but he tried to push those feelings aside. It wasn't a contest, and dwelling on it would do nobody any good; Mako needed his support right now.

He considered everything that had passed between them in the past several days; they had gone from complete strangers to…what, exactly? He didn't know how to define their relationship, such as it was at the moment. What did he want it to be? What did _she_ want? He felt like his judgment was clouded by the Hangover; his thoughts were jumbled with hers, making it impossible to sort them out. His thoughts weren't really conflicting, though, which seemed to imply that they were both, at least, confused about the same things.

He hadn't really _dated_ anyone since he was a teenager; his life after that had been devoted to making it into the Jaeger program, and then to the pilot seat, which left little to no time for serious relationships. He had mostly had short-term, friends-with-benefits relationships, and even those were few and far between. After Yancy died, he couldn't bring himself to let anyone else into his life, in any capacity; he had spent five years isolating himself as much as possible, and now he wasn't sure he knew how to let anyone in again. He had felt something stirring inside him when he first met Mako; her faux pas at talking about him in Japanese while not knowing he could understand her - and her ensuing embarrassment - had certainly amused him, but seeing her in the fighting ring was what had _really_ gotten his attention.

If he was being totally honest, he hadn't expected much from her when he saw her; she was practically half his size, skinny and dainty-looking. But once she had taken off her bulky Ranger shirt, he had seen the lean musculature underneath, and her fluid, athletic movements made her a force to be reckoned with. He smiled at the thought of her, letting him land the first strike to lead him into a false sense of security before going on the attack. She was equal to him in every way, and better than him in many others. He had gotten used to women who only wanted to be with him because of his Ranger status, but here was one woman who stood on her own and wanted nothing from him.

Not his Ranger status, anyway.

He lathered his hands with soap and began washing away the sweat from the Kwoon, contemplating his feelings about Mako. He was certainly attracted to her- who the hell _wouldn't_ be?- but was there something besides a physical attraction? He thought so, but didn't know how to tell. The thought of her made _something_ inside him stir, that was for sure; a kind of warmth in his chest when he thought of seeing her, talking to her, or doing anything with her, really. The way she tested his skills in the Kwoon brought a smile to his face, enjoying the challenges she offered him. The way she knew the ins and outs of Jaeger tech, had basically led the rebuild of Gypsy on her own, and seemed to know everything there was to know about working on engines and machinery were also big pluses.

But was _she_ attracted to _him_? The jumble of emotions in his mind seemed to indicate that it was a possibility; he was fairly certain she had never dated anyone before, so maybe she was just as confused as he was. He sighed, quickly shampooing his hair, rubbing it vigorously to rinse it out. He shut off the water, feeling even more confused than when he had started thinking about it. He stepped out of the shower and quickly toweled off before hanging the towel over the shower curtain rod to dry. He walked out of the bathroom, heading to his dresser and picking a pair of boxers out from the drawer and slipping them on. He grabbed a clean pair of Ranger-issue cargo pants and stepped into them, pulling them over his hips right as he heard a timid tapping on his door.

He must have been thinking for a long time in the shower for Mako to be ready before him. He stepped to the door and pulled it open with one hand, his other zipping up the pants. "You shower fast," he said, grinning at her.

He saw her eyes widen ever so slightly as she took him in, her eyes quickly raking over his naked torso, sliding down to his waistband which was still unbuttoned, showing a bit of the black boxers underneath. Her eyes quickly moved back up to his face, a faint blush rising in her cheeks and a guilty look on her face when she realized he had seen her gawking at him. Not that he minded.

"Come in," he said, pushing the door open. "I'm almost ready."

He turned away and quickly buttoned the pants, picking one of his collared Ranger polo shirts up off the dresser and quickly pulling it over his head. Mako sat tentatively on his bed, and he knew that she was thinking of the night before when she took in the still-rumpled sheets. He looked at her neck and realized it was covered by the collar of her shirt now, so the mark wouldn't show. A small part of him was disappointed not to see it, but he brushed it aside as he pulled on a pair of socks and stepped into his boots. He bent down to tie them, bringing him just below Mako's eye-level.

"How do I look?" he asked, grinning and quickly tying his boots.

She smiled vaguely. "Your hair is messy," she said quietly, reaching out towards him.

She hesitated for a moment, then ran her fingers through his hair, smoothing it out so no hair was standing out at an angle. Raleigh felt a rush of heat and suddenly felt like his shirt was too tight and the room too hot. Her sweet scent filled his nose, and he wanted to get close to her, the way he was last night, and let it envelop him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before slowly standing up, holding out his arms.

"How about now? Am I presentable?"

Her smile widened as she stood up, too. She reached towards him and he froze, not sure what she was doing. She laughed quietly at his nervousness and put her hands on his chest, smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt and pulling his collar straight.

"I promise I won't bite..." she said, just a little mischievously.

He thought privately that he might not mind it she _did_ bite, but quickly pushed the thought aside. He thought her hands lingered on him a bit longer than strictly necessary, but maybe that was wishful thinking. She slid her hands down, grazing over his stomach before she pulled away, turning towards the door.

"Breakfast?" she asked, smiling nervously.

. . . . . .

They headed down to the mess hall, walking close enough together that their hands brushed against one another, but nothing more. Raleigh felt nerves emanating from her- or were they his?- and tried to calm himself; getting nervous around her wouldn't help him figure out his feelings, he was sure. He tried to remind himself that they had literally gone to war together, but that seemed like a piece of cake compared to navigating a potential romantic relationship. He let out a frustrated sigh, and Mako let out a small laugh. Did she know what he was thinking? He looked at her, his eyes narrowed, but she looked back at him innocently.

Too innocently.

They arrived at the door to the mess hall, and Raleigh held out an arm to stop her. "We don't have to go in," he said quickly. "We can go to the kitchen and eat in there if you don't want to talk to anyone."

Mako considered his words, then peeked through the door, taking a deep breath and looking like she was heading into battle. A battle more dangerous than one with a Kaiju, by the look of her.

"No," she said, steeling herself. "We can eat here. I can't hide forever. May as well get used to it."

They headed in, and Raleigh noticed that there weren't many people eating at the moment. Probably a combination of the early hour and the late night everyone had spent celebrating, he thought. They walked together to the buffet area in the front of the room, grabbing plates from the end of the table closest to the door and moving downward, ladling food onto their plates as they went down the line. He saw the workers' eyes widen as they took in Mako and Raleigh, but they restrained themselves from speaking to them. He saw the awkwardness that crossed their expressions, and knew that they realized they didn't have any words of comfort to offer Mako regarding Pentecost's death.

 _Glad they can at least figure that out_ , Raleigh thought, grabbing a carton of milk from the small fridge at the end of the table and heading towards an empty table. Mako followed him, placing her plate next to his and sitting down. He was a little surprised that she wanted to sit next to him instead of across the table, but pleased. He had figured that she wasn't a person who liked a lot of physical contact, but he supposed he was an exception now that they had Drifted. It had a way of drawing people together, even afterward.

They sat down, their knees brushing together, and ate in a comfortable silence for a while, before people started realizing that they were there. By the time they finished eating breakfast, they had each shaken about 15 hands, repeating brief snippets of their story until their throats felt hoarse, and accepting thanks and praise from everyone that passed them by. Raleigh could tell that Mako was reaching the limit on what she was willing to talk about, and felt her thoughts drifting back to her father's last act, so he quickly pulled her to her feet and guided her towards the plate-return area, making vague apologies to their visitors for leaving so suddenly and heading back out of the hall.

Mako paused once they had made it down the hall a bit, closing her eyes and leaning against the wall, breathing deeply and putting her face in her hands. Raleigh wanted to ask if she was okay, but he already knew the answer. He leaned back against the wall next to her, his shoulder against hers, offering the only silent comfort he could think of. She looked up at him in surprise when she felt him next to her, her hands falling to her sides. She paused for a moment, but then leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes again, seeming to relax just a little. He felt a strange flutter in his chest a moment later, when he felt her hand shyly take his, holding it loosely as though waiting for him to pull away. He laced his fingers through hers, leaning his head sideways so it rested on hers, her sweet scent washing over him again.

They stayed like that for several minutes, each comforted by the presence of the other, slowly calming down. Eventually, Mako gave Raleigh's hand a small squeeze and he knew she was ready to go. He stood up straight, stretching his neck after having it bent for so long, and looked down at her. She looked shy, not quite meeting his eyes and fussing with her collar, which was already straight.

"Should we go see Marshal Hansen?" he asked, giving her a moment to collect herself. "I'm not sure what we need to do for the press conference, and I guess he's the one to ask..."

The word "now" hung in the air between them, but they both ignored it. Mako nodded and pushed herself off the wall, turning in the direction of the administrative wing of the Shatterdome where the offices were located.

. . . . . .

They headed towards Marshal Hansen's office, given that he was now the man in charge. Raleigh knew they would have to pass Pentecost's office on the way there, so he slipped his hand into Mako's as they approached it, hoping that it would be comforting to her and not distasteful. She looked at his door as they approached it, but said nothing and continued walking down the hallway until they reached Marshal Hansen's office further down the way. Raleigh released Mako's hand and raised his arm to knock, but the door opened suddenly and Hansen was standing there in front of them.

"Oh! Becket, Mori. Good," he said, looking back and forth between them. "I was just about to come looking for you. Please, come in."

He stepped aside, and the two Rangers filed into the room. The office was the same layout as Marshal Pentecost's, but much less neat and tidy. There were stacks of papers on every surface, maps and diagrams tacked haphazardly on the walls, and various pieces of equipment scattered around, making Mako think he had just walked off with bits and pieces of discarded Jaeger tech. She looked at him now, and saw that he had the same look in his eyes as she did; haunted, agonized, and grieving. She didn't know what it felt like to lose a child, and she wondered how it compared to losing a parent. Not that it was a competition. He had a good handle on his emotions, though, and briskly walked them into the office, sitting down behind his desk and gesturing for them to sit in the two chairs in front of it.

"I'm glad you're here," he said, opening a drawer in his desk and shoving a pile of papers into it, quickly clearing off the desk surface so he had a place to rest his folded hands. "We're being besieged by reporters and news anchors from the area, wanting to get any information we have. Specifically, they want to talk to you. I don't think I need to tell you that this is one of the biggest news stories ever, and the Defense Corps. is right in the middle of it."

He paused, looking at the two of them. Raleigh looked politely back at him, but Mako averted her eyes. She knew she'd have to do some talking, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

"Listen, Mako," Herc said, his eyes softening.

He wasn't using his official "Marshal" voice now, but rather the pseudo-uncle tone she had heard from him when she was a child spending time at the Shatterdome with Pentecost. She looked up in surprise, and saw that he was smiling sadly at her.

"I know what you're going through right now, because I'm going through it, too. There's nothing I want more than to hide away from everyone and everything and just let the grief take hold of me." He cleared his throat and went on, "But your father and my son gave their lives so that we could all live, and we owe it to them to share their story. Your story."

Mako was shocked at his admission; a Marshal never admitted weakness, and she felt like tears might be building behind her eyes when she thought of him losing his only child.

"I'm sorry about Chuck," she whispered, looking down and quickly rubbing at her eyes, just in case. "He was so brave. We didn't get along so great sometimes, but I always respected his skills as a pilot."

"Thanks, sweetie."

She looked back up at him. He hadn't used that nickname since she was a child, and it brought a small smile to her face to hear it now.

He cleared his throat gruffly and went on, "There will be a press conference this afternoon, 1400 hours sharp. I need the two of you to be there, because you're who they want to talk to. Our J-Tech crews and chief scientists will be there as well, but you two will be running point. I've got a list here for you to look over: questions people will probably ask, some responses you can use, that sort of stuff. There's not really anything classified on your end, so just say as much as you're comfortable with, as far as what happened. I'll be speaking first about the actual logistics of what happened, the plans that were made, and so on. After that, it's your show."

He handed Mako the paper in his hand and she scanned it before handing it to Raleigh to read. She closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. She could do this. She felt Raleigh's hand covering hers on the arm of her chair and opened her eyes to look at him.

"It will be fine," he said quietly. "I'll be there with you and I can do most of the talking, if that's what you want."

She smiled weakly and nodded once before looking back at Herc, who was looking curiously between them as if trying to solve a puzzle.

"Anyway," Herc went on, shaking his head slightly. "Be in the briefing room at 1300 to begin prep. We'll have some of our public relations staff there to go over any last minute questions you might have. You don't have to dress up, or anything; in fact, I think it would be best to just wear your Ranger uniforms."

Mako saw Herc's eyes stare for just a second at the side of her neck and felt her face redden. Apparently, the shirt collar had shifted slightly. She adjusted it quickly, because she just couldn't help it, and Herc smiled vaguely.

"Other than that, I'll see you at 1300 hours. If you have any questions, give me a call in my office. You're dismissed."

. . . . . .

Raleigh and Mako headed away from the Marshals' wing and back towards their own rooms. Mako was silent as they walked along the hall, her arms folded tightly across her chest as she walked beside him. Her emotions were snarled together in a mess that Raleigh desperately wanted to untangle, but he wasn't sure where to begin. They made it to the spot right between their two rooms, and he turned to her.

"Do you want to be alone?" Raleigh asked.

She looked up at him. Did _he_ want to be alone? She was confused by the things she felt for him now; she had never really wanted to be around anyone for this much time, and she had certainly never wanted to have physical contact with anyone. But when he held her...

She felt warmth in her face and looked down, avoiding his eyes becaus she didn't want to see rejection there. Wanting to be physical together was one thing, but she was starting to feel like this might be something more. On her end, at least. She was worried that the lines between them were beginning to blur, and she didn't know what to do about it. Her thoughts began to spiral, and she felt his hand under her chin, tilting it up to look at him.

"Come with me," he said, holding out his hand; it was part question, part request.

She hesitated before taking it, following him to his room. He closed the door behind him and guided her to the bed, which was stil rumpled from their sleep the night before. Mako felt suddenly hot when she thought about it, and Raleigh grinned a bit guiltily at her. He sat down, patting the space next to him and inviting her to sit. She hesitated, not sure where this was headed, but then sat next to him, her body stiff and rigid.

"Look, Mako," he said, looking at her seriously. "I think we should talk about a few things."

Her heart sank. She didn't really know why, but his words sounded foreboding. Was it about last night? Did he regret it? Not that anything really happened, but maybe he wasn't a _cuddle all night_ sort of person. Then again, she wasn't, either, so who was she to question it? She didn't even know what she felt for him. There was physical attraction, to be sure, but she was starting to think that it might be more. She'd never been in a relationship, though, so how could she know if that's what she wanted from him? _Was_ that what she wanted?

Her thoughts were spiraling again, and she shook her head, trying to clear it.

"About last night…"

Mako winced, and he paused. "What?" he asked, confused.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to-"

"Mako," he interrupted, laughing a little. "I'm not upset about it. I mean, I wish I hadn't woken you up by being on top of you because that was pretty inappropriate of me, but I don't regret spending the night with you…"

She looked up at him then. "You don't?"

He shook his head emphatically. "Of course not. Do you? I mean, besides the awkward parts?"

It was her turn to shake her head, and Raleigh looked relieved. "Good," he said quietly. He took a deep breath and went on, "Look, I don't think we should jump into this too quickly. But I think we can both agree that there are some feelings between us. Can't we?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes…but I don't know what they are." She looked back at her knees, embarrassed for the first time at her lack of relationship experience.

"I know," Raleigh said quietly. "Neither do I. I haven't ever felt this way before. That's not a bad thing, just…confusing. I don't know how to explain it. But I guess we can both tell what the other is thinking now, anyway. Right?"

She hesitantly met his gaze, then nodded. "You like me…" she said slowly. "And…I like you. But how do we know these are actual feelings, and not just things we feel because of the Drift?"

Raleigh noted her use of the word "we." Good, so they were on the same page.

The thought gave him a bit more confidence, so he responded, "I think maybe part of it is the Drift, but not all of it. I liked you when we first met." He paused and grinned at her mischievously. "I liked you a lot more after you beat me in the Ranger candidate trials."

Mako let out a small, nervous laugh. "I just wanted to keep your ego in check…"

Raleigh smiled. "You're the only one who can…"

But then he became serious again. "Look, I can feel what you feel, too. I know you're as confused as I am about this, but I think we should try and figure it out. We don't have to define anything now, but…I dunno. I would like to, at some point. What do you think?"

He looked anxious now, and Mako pondered his words for a minute before answering.

"I don't know how to define it," she said quietly. "I have never felt anything like this before. I don't know what any of it means….and I don't know what to do." She hung her head, ashamed at her admission. "We practically just met, and already the feelings are so intense that it's starting to scare me."

Her voice cracked a little at the end of her sentence, giving Raleigh a pulse of sympathy.

"I know what you mean," he said honestly.

He moved closer to her on the bed and hesitantly put an arm around her shoulders. She tensed for a moment, looking up at him in confusion, but relaxed a moment later and leaned into him.

"We've been through a lot in the short time we've known each other, and I'm sure that's part of why we're feeling this way, but I don't think it's the whole reason. Being inside each other's minds has intensified everything. It's not abnormal, as far as I know. And even if it's not normal, who cares? Maybe it's just different."

"I guess you're right," Mako said slowly. "So what do we do about it now?"

Raleigh shrugged. "Who says we need to do anything about it now? Maybe we should just spend some more time together and see what happens. What do you think?"

Their eyes met, and he knew they were in perfect harmony once again. Mako nodded and slowly leaned back into him, hesitantly sliding her arms around his torso in a sort of loose hug, laying her head on his chest.

"I like hugging you," she offered shyly, listening to his heartbeat.

Was it faster than normal? She felt his breath in her ear and a large hand coming up onto her head, gently stroking her hair.

"I like hugging you, too," he said, squeezing her tighter to him and nuzzling her hair.

A feeling of contentment slowly flowed through both of them, making them think that, for the moment, they were right where they needed to be.


	4. Chapter 4

Mako and Raleigh spent the better part of the morning in his room, cuddled up on his bed and enjoying the closeness of each other. He laid on his back with Mako curled up beside him, her head in the crook of his arm and her hand splayed over his chest, lazily tracing patterns into his shirt. He thought about how, barely a week ago, he had been working on the Kaiju wall and hadn't even known Mako existed. Now, he felt like the direction of his life had changed irrevocably just by meeting her, and he pondered that for a while. Everything seemed so intense between them, like a high school crush on steroids; he had the strange desire to stay close to her, hold her, and touch her; and not even in a sexual way.

 _Okay, maybe a little bit of that_ , he admitted to himself.

But he felt relaxed and content just having her in his arms like he did now. It had been years since he felt anything even close to this for someone else, and it had never been this…consuming.

He knew this was a somewhat expected reaction to the Drift, but he felt sure that it was still outside the parameters of what was considered "normal". He and Yancy had always felt a desire to be close after they Drifted, but it was more about companionship; they shared a room and basically did everything together; training, meals, and social outings were all shared between them. With Mako, there definitely seemed to be a romantic undertone, and that was what was confusing him now. How could they tell which feelings were natural, and which were a byproduct of the Drift?

He felt sure he would have felt this way for Mako in a normal setting, but given his five-year hiatus of all personal relationships, it was difficult to say for certain. Would she have drawn him out of his self-imposed seclusion had she not been inside his head, and he inside hers? He thought back to their first sparring match and smiled; he thought she would have, simply by the way she had been completely unimpressed with him and had gone on to beat him almost effortlessly.

He looked down at her now; her breathing had grown deep and even, and her eyes had fluttered shut. His smiled widened as he realized she had fallen asleep on him, taking it as a good sign that she felt safe enough with him to let her guard down so completely. He was willing to bet that nobody, except maybe the Marshal, had seen her sleep in quite a long time; she was just that cautious. That was another thing they had in common, he thought: always being on their guard. They had both suffered traumatic losses at the hands of Kaiju, and they both carried the guilt of not having been able to save their family members, no matter how irrational the thoughts. _Survivor's guilt_ and _PTSD_ were both terms that Raleigh had heard thrown around about him, both following Yancy's death, and recently when he had returned to the Jaeger program. Sometimes it made him feel like he was defective in some way, but lying here with her, it didn't seem to matter. She was probably the one person on earth who accepted him exactly as he was; no strings attached, no questions asked.

It gave him a warm feeling in his chest when he looked at her, her delicate features looking so peaceful and relaxed as she slept in his arms. He didn't think he'd mind spending the entire day like this, simply existing with her and hidden away from the world. He gently pressed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, breathing deeply and relaxing along with her. Her arm tightened around his chest and she nuzzled her face against him, so he pulled her closer, cocooning her in his arms. He slowly drifted off to sleep like that, and for the first time in recent memory, he slept peacefully; not chased by nightmares or insomnia, thanks to the tiny, fierce Ranger sleeping beside him.

. . . . . . .

Mako woke a few hours later, feeling surprisingly well-rested, but also starving. She blearily looked around, trying to remember where she was, and realized she was tucked into Raleigh's arms like a teddy bear, wrapped in his warmth and his wonderful masculine scent. He was still asleep, his face pressed into her hair and his hand resting on her waist while the other was tucked beneath her. She rubbed her eyes but made no move to sit up, finding that she enjoyed the contact they were sharing. She looked over at the clock sitting on his desk and saw that they had just over an hour before they needed to be in the briefing room. Plenty of time for lunch, she thought. And possibly a change of clothes and a quick brush through her hair, she added, looking down at the wrinkled state of her shirt and the chaotic state of Raleigh's hair. She smiled at his state of disarray and lifted a hand up to run through his hair, enjoying the act of straightening it out.

His eyes opened slowly, and she saw him struggle for a moment to get her into focus before giving her a sleepy smile.

"Hey," he said quietly, his voice husky with sleep.

She smiled back at him, removing her hand from his hair but sliding it down his cheek before pulling it back. "We need to get up soon," she said, matching his quiet tone. "We have a little over an hour before we need to be at the briefing room. I don't know about you, but I want something to eat first."

He exhaled, and it sounded like a laugh. "Sounds good to me," he said, slowly sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "You know, that's the first time I've been able to sleep without waking up or having nightmares in...I don't even know how long. You must be good sleep company."

She laughed and sat up with him. "I think I need to change my shirt and brush my hair before we go. I'm all wrinkly and crazy haired now."

He looked down at his own shirt and sighed. "I guess you're right. Let me change this and then we can go get some lunch."

He swung his feet over the side of the bed and pulled the shirt over his head, tossing it in the hamper in the corner of the room. Mako's eyes widened as she looked at his toned, muscular back, enjoying the way his muscles ripples as he moved. She took in the scars from his circuitry suite that decorated his left side, and wondered what it would feel like to run her fingers along them…

She tried to get a grip on herself, giving her head a shake and looking away, not wanting to ogle him, when she heard a soft knock on the door. Raleigh looked around curiously, wondering who even knew where his room was besides Mako. He looked at her and she shrugged, just as unsure as he was. He walked over and pulled the door open, still shirtless, and peered around it, his eyebrows raised curiously.

"Hi, Raleigh," came a breathy, high pitched voice.

It was obviously female, and Mako could hear the excitement in it, as well as what sounded like a few other women along with her, tittering at the sight before them. She supposed she couldn't blame them; Raleigh _did_ look good shirtless.

"Uh..." Raleigh said slowly. "Hi. Can I help you?"

"We were wondering if you'd like to join us for lunch," the voice said, still a little breathless and over excited.

Raleigh stared at her blankly. Mako couldn't see the girl from her position on the bed, because Raleigh was blocking her, but she could guess that the girl was taken aback by his apparent lack of interest.

"Oh..." he said slowly. "I'll be heading to lunch soon. With my partner." He stepped to the side slightly and jerked his head in Mako's direction. "Maybe we'll see you there."

Mako looked up and saw a pretty blonde woman in a cadet uniform looking at her with a shocked expression on her face, her eyes narrowing as she took in Mako's rumpled clothing, not to mention her being tangled in Raleigh's sheets.

"Oh..." she said. "Okay, sure. We'll save you a spot."

Raleigh smiled vaguely and closed the door, giving Mako a very confused look.

"What was _that_ about?" He said blankly. "I don't even know that girl. Do you?"

Mako giggled. "Everyone knows you now. World hero, and all that? I'm sure every woman in the vicinity will be after you."

He sighed. "I'd forgotten about that part of being a Jaeger Pilot. Doesn't seem as awesome now as it did when I was starting out."

Mako tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged, opening a drawer and pulling out an unwrinkled shirt. "Well, when I was a kid just starting out, I liked all the attention I got from girls. But eventually it became kind of depressing, because I realized that they only wanted to be around be because I was a good pilot, not because they actually liked me."

He broke off, looking embarrassed, but Mako could see his point.

"That sounds lonely," she said, meaning it. But then she grinned and added, "Well, at least you know _I'm_ not hanging out with you because you're a pilot. Since I already _am_ one."

Raleigh laughed as he pulled the shirt over his head. "I _did_ actually think of that, believe it or not..."

He bent down to put on his boots, and Mako considered his words while she watched him, bending down to put her own back on. He stood up a moment later, ready to go. She hopped up off the bed and opened the door to his room, walking out with him close behind her. She heard the loud metallic sound of the door closing as she was opening her own door, slipping inside and going for the dresser. She pulled out another clean polo shirt with the Defense Corps. logo on the upper corner, pausing for a moment to consider whether she should go in the bathroom to change. She heard Raleigh closing the door behind him, and turned to see him flopping down on her bed, looking at the ceiling in an attempt to give her some privacy. She smiled and turned away, quickly pulling the shirt over her head and replacing it with the fresh one. She went into the bathroom and grabbed her hairbrush off the counter, pulling it quickly through her hair until it was presentable. She checked her collar in the mirror to make sure her hickey was covered and the shirt was straight, then headed black out to Raleigh.

"Ready?" she asked.

He jumped up and headed out the door, clearly as eager for food as she was. She closed it and hurried to keep up with his long strides, trying to ignore the looks they were getting as they walked down the hall. Now that it was later in the day, there were people milling around everywhere, and she and Raleigh were somehow the center of attention at every point. A group of cadets gawked at them as they passed, getting close to the mess hall, and Mako felt herself blushing. Raleigh grinned down at her.

" _Now_ who's getting attention?" He asked her, jerking his head towards the group who had since passed them.

She looked up at him curiously and he let it an exasperated sigh.

"Come on," he said, "You _must_ realize those guys were all checking you out."

Mako's eyebrows raised. "I don't think so," she scoffed. "They're probably just aspiring to be you."

Raleigh rolled his eyes and placed a hand on her lower back, guiding her into the mess hall and towards the buffet serving tables at the front of the room. "I guarantee they were looking at you. You have your own set of groupies now, since you _also_ saved the world. Now, what do you want to eat?"

Mako rolled her eyes but accepted the plate he was handing to her, picking up a serving spoon and putting food onto her plate. She finished ahead of him, grabbing a drink from the end of the table while he was still topping off his plate, and surveyed the room, looking for an empty seat. It seemed like there were suddenly a lot of women there, and a majority of them didn't have any food; they were just sitting at tables, looking in Raleigh's direction. She gave him a significant look as he approached her, grabbing a bottle of juice off the end of the bar and joining her.

"What?" he asked, confused.

She jerked her head in the general direction of the tables. "Look how many people are here just to gawk at you. None of them are even eating." She let out a small laugh, finding it a bit ridiculous, but there was the tiniest twinge of jealousy and irritation buried in there.

Raleigh's eyes widened as he took in the scene. "Jeez," he said quietly. "Well, let's not sit by any of _them_ , or I might not make it out in one piece. Come on."

Holding his tray in one hand, he slung his other around her shoulders, surprising her. She looked up at him questioningly, and he grinned.

"This should keep us both safe from the groupies," he said quietly, bending down to whisper in her ear.

She hoped he didn't feel her shiver as his breath tickled her neck. She saw a lot of glares coming her way as he steered her through the room, heading for a group of empty tables in the back corner of the room. She could tell that the vision of Raleigh with another woman was not welcome in the eyes of the general female populace of the Shatterdome, but she tried to take it in stride and look like she belonged there. He set his tray down and she copied him, sitting down next to him as she had in the morning, curious about her desire to stay so close to him now when she had never enjoyed physical contact with anyone before. They started eating, talking a little but mostly focused on their food. After a while, Raleigh reached into his back pocket and took out the folded sheet of press conference questions he had gotten from Marshal Hansen, unfolding it and laying it on the table between them. The questions were fairly straightforward, mostly about what they had seen and how they had felt about it. Raleigh suspected that the press conference would be a lot less straightforward than this sheet, but he considered his answers anyway.

"You ready for this?" he asked Mako quietly, leaning his forehead to hers so they were nearly touching.

She looked at him and gave a small shrug. "I guess I'll have to be, won't I? I don't think there's any hiding..."

She dropped her eyes to the list, reading some of the notes that Herc had scribbled in the margins in his small, messy handwriting. She paused at one line, cocking her head to the side curiously.

"What is the nature of our relationship?" She asked blankly. "What does that mean, the nature of our relationship?"

She looked at Raleigh, who looked as puzzled as she felt. "I'm not sure..." he said slowly, looking up at her. "What do you think we should say?"

Mako shrugged again, her face feeling hot.

"Maybe we should just say we're copilots and leave it at that," he said slowly, and she looked up at him. He smiled and went on, "No reason to talk about it to the world if we haven't even decided for ourselves. What do you think?"

Mako nodded slowly, looking back at the list. "That makes sense. What about this one- 'why do you think you were chosen for this mission?'"

Her eyes narrowed. "That sounds like they're asking if I'm qualified to be here or if I got in because of who my father..." she broke off awkwardly, dropping her gaze to her hands which were now fidgeting with her fork.

Raleigh placed a large hand over her small ones, bringing her attention back to him. "If someone is stupid enough to ask that question, read them your simulation scores and class ranking; that should shut them up. And if it doesn't, I'd be happy to shut them up for you."

He gave her hands a small squeeze, the intense look on his face making her laugh. She slid her hands out from his and picked up her tray, pushing out her chair and getting to her feet.

"It's almost time. We should head to the briefing room and see what the PR people have to say. Are you ready?"

She stacked his tray on top of hers, balancing the empty plates on top and carrying the stack to the return area, Raleigh on her heels. She blushed as she saw the amount of people staring at her, particularly at the angry glances she was getting from the female half of the room. As she turned away from the return table, she found herself bumping into Raleigh's broad chest, letting it a small squeak of surprise. She felt his laugh ruffle her hair, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders again, pulling her along with him towards the exit, inciting even more jealousy in the crowd, Mako was sure. A reluctant smile found its way onto her face at the thought.

...

They walked in to the Briefing room together, side by side, Raleigh no longer holding on to Mako. He figured if people were already curious about their relationship, they'd be better off not showing any kind of affection that might encourage rumors.

The room was large and open, with a long table at the front of the room and a few dozen chairs lined up facing it, generally used for members of the press when they were reporting on Shatterdome activities. The room hadn't been used much in quite some time, and it held an air of neglect about it. They headed up to the table where a number of people in business attire were milling about, talking quietly with the J-Tech crew members that were already seated. Clearly, he and Mako were the awaited speakers, because every head turned in their direction when Herc's voice rang out, greeting them.

"Becket, Mori. Up here, please." He waved them up towards the table and gestured for them to sit down at two chairs in the middle.

Raleigh felt Mako tense beside him, clearly dreading being at the literal center of attention, but she took a breath and looked determined, so he followed her along the back of the table to their seats. Each place setting had a small notebook and pen, along with a glass of water to the side, and Mako picked hers up at once and took a quick sip before looking up at the Marshal for further instructions. He gestured for them to take their seats, so Raleigh pulled out a chair for Mako before sitting in the one next to it, folding his hands on the table and looking up expectantly. He could feel eyes on him from both sides, and knew that the J-Tech crew members nearest him were dying to hurl questions and exclamations at them, but they refrained for the moment.

"Okay," Herc's voice boomed out, silencing everyone. "Now that we're all here, let's go over a few things. This is Amelia Clare, our head of public relations. She'll be going over the finer points of today's discussion, and give a few pointers on what to say and how to say it. I'll be speaking first, giving the press an overview of our strategies for closing the Breach, as well as...everything that followed." He cleared his throat, clearly trying not to think about Chuck and Pentecost, and went on, "After that, Becket and Mori will give their accounts of what happened down below, and include any details they see fit to add. The press will have plenty of questions, I'm sure, and you can answer the ones you want to and deflect the rest to me or the rest of the crews here."

He gestured to the rest of the people at the table.

"Next, the J-Tech crews will give an overview of the logistics of the mission; pilots, discuss the drop of the Jaegers, getting suited up, and so on. Finally, Newt and Herman will speak about the Kaiju science and why we had to do things the way we did." He looked at the end of the table where the chief scientists were sitting.

"Herman, please keep Newt from doing his crazy scientist routine and keep things on point so people can actually understand him."

Raleigh looked down the table and saw that Newt looked highly affronted, but he was smart enough not to voice any objections to Herc's assessment.

"After that's all done, there will be an open forum for questions by members of the press. We'll try and keep it short, and cut things off if any questions become too invasive." His eyes flicked towards Mako and Raleigh, but he didn't mention anything to them directly.

He looked over to Amelia, who nodded and stepped forward. She was tall, lean, and rather intimidating in her perfectly pressed pantsuit and high heeled shoes, Raleigh thought. Her blond hair was tied in an elegant knot at the back of her head, and her posture would have made even Pentecost stand up a bit straighter. Her face was serious, and she struck him as someone he would not want to cross. Not outside the Kwoon, anyway.

"It's best to keep your answers short and to the point," she said, looking up and down the table at everyone. "I realize that most of you aren't used to talking to members of the press, and it's okay to pause and think about your answer before you say anything. There will likely be tabloid reporters here looking for gossip, and they'll take any comment they can get and make a story out of it, no matter how little truth there is to it."

She looked irritated at the thought, but continued, "For that reason, it's best to be very clear about what you want them to know. I would advise against saying anything about your personal lives that you don't want splashed across the front page of _People_ magazine."

She stepped towards Mako and Raleigh and said quietly, "You two, in particular, need to be careful about this. I've already had reporters calling my office demanding to know whether or not you're an item, details about your relationship-whatever it might be- and questions about your father, Mako. I've dodged them all and given vague answers, but they'll ask again. I suggest you just tell them that you're copilots who work well together and leave it at that, unless you _want_ to give details. I wouldn't advise doing that, but it's your call."

Mako looked at Raleigh, panic evident on her face.

"I can handle those questions," Raleigh told her quietly. "Getting people to leave me alone and denying them information is sort of a specialty of mine."

She smiled reluctantly and nodded. She looked back to Amelia, who was looking at them in an appraising sort of way.

"That sounds good," Amelia said after a moment, then turned back to Mako. "Mako, I know people will ask about Marshal Pentecost. It's natural for people to want to know, but it's also natural for you to not want to talk about it. It's okay for you to change the subject if things start getting too personal, okay? Thanks to the work he did, the Shatterdome isn't looking for anyone's approval anymore, so we're pretty much free to say what we like."

Mako nodded, and Amelia smiled kindly at her.

"Okay, everyone," she said, louder so everyone could hear her. "Let's get this show on the road."

. . . . . . . .

Bulbs flashed, nearly blinding them as they sat at the table, staring into a long line of video cameras and reporters. Marshal Hansen was wrapping up his account of the events, answering questions as he went, and Mako's nerves were starting to intensify. She took deep breaths, and Raleigh laid his hand on her leg under the table, giving it a gentle squeeze to let her know she wasn't alone. She gave him a small smile, then turned to the front as the first question was sent their way.

"Ranger Mori, can you describe your thought process when you got into the Jaeger to begin the mission down to the Breach?"

Mako stared blankly for a moment then said, loud and clear into the microphone in front of her, "I was thinking that it was time to do what we needed to do. We had a plan, and we needed to work together to carry it out." She blushed and looked quickly at Raleigh, who smiled and nodded encouragingly.

The reporter nodded appreciatively and scribbled some notes onto his pad of paper before continuing his questioning. "Ranger, what would you say help you the most in preparing for this mission? We've all seen the kind of devastation that's been caused by these monsters over the years; what made you want to be on the front lines?"

The reporter looked at her attentively, his pen poised over the pad of paper, patiently awaiting her answer. Mako felt like a hand was wrapping around her heart and lungs, making it impossible to speak or even breathe. How was she supposed to explain her deep seated desires for vengeance without sounding like a lunatic? How could she put into words the way that _Sensei_ had raised her to be the perfect soldier, without even meaning to? She felt panic welling in her chest and her eyes flashed to Raleigh without conscious thought, and she felt his hand come back to her knee, squeezing it gently. He smiled kindly and leaned forward to speak into the microphone in her stead, as promised.

"We both went through the Jaeger academy," Raleigh said clearly, bringing the reporter's attention to himself. "Ranger Mori graduated a few years after I…took a leave of absence. She was top of her class, and that was all the preparation she really needed. Nobody makes it through the Jaeger Academy without serious skill and dedication to the cause, and all of us were committed to helping end the war."

The reporter nodded as his pen continued to fly across the page. "Thank you, Ranger. Both of you. I think I speak for all of us here when I say how grateful I am for your service. One last question: now that the Breach is sealed, what are your plans, if any? Have you decided whether you'll stay in the Defense Corps., or go elsewhere?"

Raleigh let out a small laugh. "To be honest," he said somewhat sardonically, "We pretty much expected this to be a one-way trip. We hadn't really considered what we would do if we actually succeeded in making it out alive."

He looked around at Mako, and she smiled weakly and nodded her agreement, eyeing the reporter in case he had any more questions. He was looking away, though, scribbling on his pad and leaving the floor open for the next reporter.

"Mr. Becket?" came another voice, and they both looked back to the crowd where a young woman about Mako's age had stood up, a pad and pen in her hand. Raleigh stiffened when he looked at her, but waited for her question.

"What do you think led to you and Ranger Mori being paired together? You have several years of experience, compared to her being a new recruit. Why is it that a more experienced Ranger wasn't chosen for this mission?"

Mako's eyes widened at the presumption, immediately deciding that she disliked the reporter, whether or not she had been the one who had written that question. Raleigh narrowed his eyes at the reporter, his dislike so evident that Mako was surprised the woman didn't recoil.

"I was out of the program for five years, if you recall, _Naomi_ ," he said coldly. "Ranger Mori was the top of her class, and I'm lucky that _I_ was able to be _her_ copilot."

He glared at her, and the woman blanched.

"I just meant-"

"You _meant_ to imply that she got her spot in the Jaeger because of who raised her, and not because of her skill," Raleigh cut her off. "And anyone who believes that should really pay more attention to the class rankings and _facts_ , and less to the gossip that flies around the Shatterdomes and Newsrooms."

Mako's eyes widened at his bluntness, but if she was being totally honest, his defense of her left a warm feeling in her chest. A reluctant smile slid onto her face as she looked sideways at him before sliding her gaze back to the reporter, who was looking like she wanted to melt into the floor. The room buzzed with quiet mutters, and Mako thought they were equal parts critical of the reporter's gaffe and judgmental of Raleigh's reaction.

"I'm sorry, Raleigh," she said quickly, "I didn't mean-"

"Does anyone have questions that are actually related to the _mission_ , rather than assumptions about our backgrounds?" Raleigh cut in again, glaring around the room.

The reporter flushed and quickly took her seat, avoiding eye contact with those nearest her. Mako glanced sideways at Raleigh and saw that his jaw was set in a hard line, his eyes blazing around the room as if daring anyone else to ask him a question. She hesitantly placed a hand on his leg under the table, ready to pull it back if he turned his hard gaze on her, but he seemed to soften slightly when he felt it and placed his hand on hers, giving it a small squeeze.

They spent another 45 minutes answering questions, each of them carefully within the boundaries of non-personal subject matter. Mako breathed a sigh of relief when Amelia stepped in to direct questions toward the J-Tech crew members, and she downed the rest of her water, breathing deeply and wishing she had some more. She felt hot and flustered, tired of being under the spotlight and wanting to hide from all the flashing bulbs and microphones. She felt Raleigh lacing his fingers through hers under the table, and she looked up in time to see him sliding his own, still-full water glass over to her, grinning slyly as she gratefully took a sip from it.

After what seemed like hours, the questions came to an end and members of the press began filing out of the room, no doubt aiming to have stories ready for the evening news. Mako looked to Raleigh then, not sure what to do next. He sighed heavily and got to his feet, gesturing for her to follow him. The rest of the people seated at the long table with them were filing out of the room, and they mixed in with the crowd to head back out into the hallway.

Upon leaving the room, it became evident that the majority of the photographers were still hanging around, clearly hoping to get some shots of the Rangers and crew members as they left the Briefing room. Flashes went off all around them, making it impossible to see where they were going, and Raleigh slung an arm around Mako's shoulders to keep her from getting swallowed up in the crowd and separated from him. He pulled her through the mass of people, keeping his head bowed so there wouldn't be much opportunity to take his photo, and they finally broke through the edge of the crowd and headed towards the doorway that led to the hallway that would take them to the inner areas of the Shatterdome.

As they came up on the door, Mako caught sight of someone hovering around the entrance, and felt her pulse quicken. The reporter who had asked the rude question was standing there looking around, Mako could only assume, for Raleigh. His arm stiffened around her shoulders, holding her even tighter to him when he saw her. The woman rushed over to them, her eyes on Raleigh.

"Raleigh, listen. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean that question the way it sounded."

Her eyes darted to his arm around Mako, but then back to his face, ignoring Mako completely. Raleigh clearly noticed that, and he scowled in response.

"Why are you apologizing to _me_ , Naomi? It's Mako you insulted, not me." He stared at her, and she wilted under his gaze, finally looking at Mako.

"I'm sorry," she said briskly, her gaze flicking immediately back to Raleigh. "Can we talk for a minute?"

Mako bristled, not sure why the woman was edging her out of the conversation, but feeling irritated by it nonetheless. Raleigh's arm tightened even more, his grip almost painful now, but she didn't shrug him off. Their closeness seemed to irritate Naomi for some reason, and her gaze flicked between them once more while she waited for Raleigh's response.

"About what?"

"Look, I wanted to apologize for what happened. I acted really horribly and I'd really like to make it up to you." She sounded almost...flirty at the end of her declaration, and Mako could have sworn that she was batting her eyelashes.

Raleigh sighed. "Naomi, it was a long time ago. There's really nothing to talk about." His expression was blank, and he didn't really seem to care if she responded.

"Raleigh…" Naomi laid a hand on his arm, but he pulled away. Her gaze flicked back to Mako. "Are you two, like…together, or something?"

Raleigh sighed heavily, the sound full of irritation. "Not that it's any of your business, Naomi, but we're co-pilots. I'm glad you're doing well, but I'm really not interested in anything further with you. I'd rather my personal life not end up in whatever magazine you're writing for."

Naomi whipped her hand back, looking highly offended. "Can I _please_ just talk to you privately for a minute?"

"Whatever you want to say, you can say here," Raleigh said without much interest. "Mako and I are co-pilots. You, of all people, should know that there are no secrets between people who have Drifted together."

Naomi's face reddened. "Fine," she spat, incensed. "Forget it. I hope you two are very happy together."

She clearly meant it as a dig, but Mako wasn't really sure what to make of it. Her gaze was bouncing back and forth between Naomi and Raleigh so much that she felt like she was watching a tennis match. Her gaze flicked up to Raleigh, whose eyes had narrowed as he raked Naomi over.

"What is it you're hoping to get from me, Naomi?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious, if irritated. "A story for your magazine, or what? I haven't got anything to offer you, even if I wanted to."

"I just wanted another chance, Raleigh. I'm not the same girl I was back then, and I wanted to try again…" she trailed off, wilting under his stare.

"You mean you want to try and get back in my good graces now that I'm back in the Ranger game, Naomi?" he asked coolly. "I haven't heard from you in five years. I'm sure you could have found me before now if apologizing was your real motive. It's a bit convenient that you show up now that I'm important again, don't you think?"

Naomi flushed but stood her ground. "It's not like that," she snapped. "You know I always cared about you-"

"You cared about _status_ , Naomi," Raleigh interjected. "Nothing more. Please don't insult me by acting like you care about anything but being around people who are in a position to do something for you. I fell for it then, but I won't now."

Mako raised her eyebrows in spite of herself, surprised at the direction the conversation had taken and wondering if she should leave so they could have it in private. Her eyes moved from Raleigh's stony expression to Naomi's reddened face and was surprised to see that _she_ , and not Raleigh, was on the receiving end of the woman's glare. Mako cocked her head to the side, determined not to wilt under the woman's gaze no matter how confused she was about the situation. Raleigh sighed heavily, and both women looked back at him.

"We can't change the past, Naomi. I don't bear you ill will, but there's nothing left to talk about. Good luck with your article."

He sidestepped her, tugging Mako along with him and ignoring Naomi's sound of indignation and anger, sweeping down the hallway away from all the people. Mako had no clue what was going on, but she knew Raleigh would explain when he was ready, so she tried to quell the anxiety that was churning in her stomach. She could tell he was angry, and wondered whether he'd want her around him or prefer to be alone. She shrank into herself, trying to keep from annoying him further, but he stopped mid-stride and released her from his grip. She looked up at him, almost afraid to hear what he had to say.

"I'm sorry about that," he said abruptly. "That was Naomi. She was…one of the girls who hung around me back when I first started piloting."

He looked uncomfortable, looking at the ground and shuffling his feet.

"Oh…" she said, not sure what else there was to say. "Okay."

He sighed, and he seemed to be exhaling his frustration because when he looked back up at her, his face was calm and more of the anger in his eyes had abated.

"We had a…falling out, years ago. She spent a lot of time with me and acted like she really liked me but…then she started seeing my brother behind my back."

Mako's eyes widened. "Why would they do that to you?"

"Yancy didn't know how I felt about her," he said, a little defensively. "But he started going out with her, and I saw the memories of it when we Drifted the next time. I was angry and hurt, and it almost ruined our relationship. I lashed out at him because I was angry at being used by another girl because of my status."

He looked embarrassed at the memory, but went on, as though trying to rid himself of a poison. "Anyway, the point is that I nearly ruined my relationship with my brother over her, when she didn't even really care about me. Looking back, it seems silly, of course, but at the time it felt…I don't know. Important, I guess. I know it's stupid."

He looked guilty, as though expecting Mako to berate him. She cocked her head, looking into his eyes.

"It's not stupid," she said quietly, taking his hands in hers and squeezing them gently. "She knew you had feelings for her and she went behind your back to be with your brother. That was very wrong and very selfish. And now…" she paused, not sure if she should continue.

Raleigh looked at her expectantly so she ploughed on, "And now she wants you back because you're back to being a Ranger again, with an even higher status than you had before. Or maybe she's actually trying to make up for what she did. I don't know."

She shrugged. She didn't want to assume things about Naomi's character without knowing her, but she felt defensive of Raleigh; even if the events had happened so long ago, and it made her dislike Naomi on principle. Raleigh cracked a smile at her thought.

"Thanks for looking out for me," he said quietly, bending down and pressing his forehead against hers.

He took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet scent that was Mako, and, somehow, it calmed him. He stood up, wrapping an arm around her once again and turning towards the Rangers' wing, leaving the sound of talking reporters and clicking cameras behind them.

. . . . . . . .


	5. Chapter 5

**Note:** _Hi everyone, sorry this took me a million years to get published. I recently moved across the country, hit the holidays, and have been job hunting, so things have been a little crazy. I'm not totally happy with this chapter, but I figure it's best to at least get something out there even if I have to go back and change it later. I am working on the next 1-2 chapters after this, but I have about 4 later ones written and ready to go, so I am doing my best to get it all done. Thanks for all the nice messages and comments!_

* * *

The day after the press conference, Raleigh and Mako slept in, getting out of bed only when their hunger insisted on it. They had slept in Raleigh's room again, curled up together and enjoying the strange sort of intimacy offered by the action. They showered and dressed in their respective rooms, then headed to the mess hall for what they realized was lunch, rather than breakfast.

The hall was filled with people when they entered, and try as they might to keep a low profile, a round of applause began as more and more people noticed them walking to the front of the room for plates. They both tried to smile at everyone, despite wanting only to eat and be left alone, and it seemed to satisfy those around them. The clapping slowed to a stop by the time they had fetched trays and begun ladling food onto their plates, though people kept coming up to them and shaking their hands or trying to engage them in conversation. At least four different women had managed to edge their way in between Mako and Raleigh in order to ask if he'd like to sit with them, but he refused them as politely as he could.

Mako rolled her eyes as the last one stalked back to her table, looking annoyed at his rejection. Raleigh sighed heavily, clearly already fed up with the attention, and surveyed the room, looking for a table that wasn't already filled. A waving hand on the right side of the room caught his attention, and he smiled in relief as he saw Tendo Choi, sitting with Herc Hansen and waving them over to take the open seats at their table. Raleigh nudged Mako and she followed him, placing her tray beside his and sitting down beside him, smiling at Tendo.

"Raleigh, Mako. How are you?" Tendo asked good-naturedly. "Enjoying all the attention, I see!"

He grinned, knowing full well that they both hated it. Raleigh shrugged, picking up his fork at the same time that Mako lifted hers.

"Could be worse, I suppose," he said, grinning back at Tendo.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mako lifting her glass to take a drink at the same time as he lifted his.

Tendo grinned at them, noticing their synchronicity. "The Hangover continues, I see," he said, eyeing their hands which were moving in unison to put the cups back down.

Raleigh let out a soft laugh. "Yeah, I guess so."

Amelia appeared suddenly behind Herc, looking irate and holding a rolled-up magazine in her hand.

"We have a problem," she said to him, but it was loud enough that Mako could hear her.

Herc looked around in surprise, but stood up and walked a few steps away from the table, bending his head close to Amelia's as she unrolled the magazine and shoved it into his hands, smacking the cover with her hand and gesturing in Mako and Raleigh's direction. Mako looked up at Raleigh, a feeling of unease taking hold in her stomach. He shrugged and looked back at Herc, who had opened the magazine and was reading an article, his face growing angrier by the second. Raleigh's stomach dropped then; Herc had always been even-tempered, and Raleigh wasn't sure he wanted to know what it was that was making him this angry. Herc looked up then and caught Raleigh's eye, and he took a deep breath and headed back to the table, Amelia on his heels.

Amelia made a grab for the magazine, her eyes flicking to Mako and back to Herc again. "Herc, give that back to me. There's no reason to-"

"They're going to find out eventually, Amelia," Herc cut in.

He held out the magazine for Mako to take, looking furious. "This was published this morning. It's a local gossip tabloid, and the writer was here at the press conference. Apparently, she didn't find it all that interesting that you saved the goddamn world, and decided to write this piece of garbage to take you down a peg."

Mako took the magazine, feeling a sense of dread now, and set it down on the table between her and Raleigh. The cover featured a grainy photo of the two of them, which they realized must have been taken from far away as they had walked down the hall the day before. They were facing each other and smiling, their foreheads pressed together; Mako recognized it from shortly after their conversation about Naomi as they walked down the hall towards their quarters following their meeting. She felt the blood drain from her face and covered her mouth with her hand as she read the headline.

 _Ranger Academy Student Flirts Her Way into the Pilot Seat_

She felt sick to her stomach. She didn't want to know what the article said, but she opened the magazine to the page that Amelia had dog-eared and began to read. It wasn't good. She felt hysteria rising in her chest as she read snippets, all of them alluding to the accusation that Mako had gotten her place in the Jaeger by sleeping with Raleigh. Despite the fact that it didn't even make sense, the entire article sounded almost convincing. The piece included an accusation of favoritism on Pentecost's part, implying that other, better Rangers had been passed over because she was his daughter. The words made Mako tremble with pent-up emotion; her breathing quickened and she tried to get herself under control as she read on.

 _One has to wonder why, with such an important task at hand, the most skilled and experienced candidates were not chosen for the job. Marshal Pentecost was surely a good leader in his day, but he seemed to have lost sight of the big picture when it came to his adopted daughter, Mako Mori. Reports from sources close to Miss Mori suggest that she and Ranger Becket shared a close relationship from the time he arrived at the Shatterdome, and that it was he who requested her as his partner. Readers, I don't know about you, but I think people should be hired based on skill, not on who they're getting "close to"._

Mako made a strangled sort of sound in her throat as she read those words, humiliation rising in her as she realized that other people would not only read this, but might actually believe that she had slept with Raleigh, and that she had done it to get a place in the Jaeger. Though the accusations wildly false, there were photos included in the article showing them together, adding fuel to the fire. She had trouble believing that the article wouldn't be taken seriously with that sort of "evidence"

She made it to the end of the article before tears started swimming in her eyes. She closed them, trying desperately not to cry, and took a shaky breath. She opened them once again and looked to the top of the page for the writer's name, guessing what she would find there.

 _Naomi Sokolov_

She could feel Raleigh's rage, both from his trembling body beside her and the white-hot anger in his head. She pressed her lips together, looking back up at Herc and Amelia, who both looked furious, and to Tendo, who looked shocked. She couldn't stand to be here any longer; the magazine would make the rounds within the Shatterdome, and everyone would know its contents by dinner time, if they didn't already. She pushed her chair roughly out from the table and stood up, leaving her full plate on the table and turning away. Raleigh grabbed her hand but she whipped it out of his grasp.

" _Don't_."

Her voice was low, rough, and furious. She didn't think she'd ever had that tone before, and Raleigh dropped his hand away, looking at her pleadingly. She knew it wasn't his fault; Naomi had written this article, not him, but her brain just couldn't separate him from her right now. She turned from him and walked swiftly out of the mess hall, not sure where she was going, but certain that she couldn't stay there. She took the last few steps at a run, hurtling out of the doorway and down the hall, trying desperately not to cry.

. . . . . . . .

Raleigh's stomach dropped at Mako's tone, but he didn't follow her. He could feel that she needed to get away from the eyes around her, and he had to deal with this for her. Naomi had been his problem, and now she had become Mako's; he had been rude to Naomi and she had lashed out, Mako getting caught in the crossfire. Raleigh looked back at Herc and Amelia, his gaze hard.

"Who the _fuck_ let this get published? I am going to _kill_ someone at that magazine." He ground his teeth, cycling through a hundred different scenarios in which he dismantled that goddamned magazine piece by piece.

"Raleigh, relax." Herc's voice was firm, leaving no room for discussion.

Raleigh stared at him, his eyes livid.

"Don't look at me like that, Raleigh," Herc went on. "Amelia is handling this. Naomi has already been blacklisted from anything and any stories at the Shatterdome or involving the Defense Corps. in the future, and Amelia has reached out to the editor of the magazine to discuss retraction. They _will_ be publishing an apology in their next issue, and I understand that Sokolov is in some hot water at work."

That mollified Raleigh's temper slightly, but not by much. "The editor still approved the story," he said through gritted teeth. "Naomi may have written it, but she's not the only one at fault."

Amelia nodded stiffly at him. "I'm meeting with him this evening. We'll see what he has to say, then go from there. Based on my conversation with him earlier, she used her previous…relationship with you as 'proof' that she knew what was going on with you, and they believed she was being truthful. Obviously, they know now that it was fabricated. Please just hang tight, Becket. I'm going to get this sorted out. "

Raleigh ground his teeth, but he knew that charging into the magazine offices wasn't the smart move right now, so he forced himself to calm down.

" _Fine_ ," he said finally. "I'll let you handle it. But if Mako is upset after that, I'm going over there to have a few choice words with that editor."

. . . . . . . .

Herc didn't say anything, just gave Raleigh a sort of grimace before getting heavily to his feet and walking away with Amelia, their heads bent together in serious discussion.

"So…" Tendo said slowly. "You wanna talk about what's going on here? I've never seen you actually care about what the press had to say about anyone. I realize you guys are copilots, but even so..."

Raleigh did his best to wipe the glare off his face as he looked at Tendo, who gave a small, knowing smile. Raleigh sighed and dropped his gaze back to the table, trying to organize his thoughts so he could voice them in a way that Tendo could actually understand.

"I guess it's the Drift Hangover..." he said quietly so only Tendo could hear him. "But it's never been this… _intense_ before..."

Tendo cocked his head to the side, waiting for Raleigh to elaborate. As the Chief officer of the J-Tech Crew, he had been the one in charge of monitoring the Drift and securing the Neural Handshake for all Rangers, so he was probably the best person to confide in about this particular issue.

"I just…My brother and I always had a sort of connection after the drift; we'd always want to spend a lot of time together and always had a good sense of what the other was thinking or feeling. But Mako and I are still in each other's heads. Like…I can hear what she's thinking at times and she can hear me, even after the Handshake has been broken. And we just…keep wanting to be close to each other. Is that normal?"

Tendo considered him for a moment. "You mean like…physically close?"

Raleigh sighed and shrugged. "Yeah. I haven't wanted anyone anywhere near me since Yancy died. But with her…" he broke off, feeling awkward but Tendo simply smiled at him for a minute before going on.

"So…" Tendo continued tentatively. "What's the deal with you two? Are you experiencing any other Hangover symptoms? You seem a lot closer than I would expect, having only piloted together a couple of times and knowing each other for such a short amount of time beforehand."

Raleigh shrugged and averted his eyes. "I don't really know. I feel a lot of things I haven't felt before, and I don't know how to tell which feelings are real and which are from the Drift."

"You mean like…romantic feelings?"

Raleigh felt himself blushing, not wanting to admit it, but he shrugged again. This was Tendo, after all, and Raleigh knew he wouldn't laugh.

"I'm not really sure. I think so. I liked her when we first met, but that doesn't really explain why everything feels so intense. Like...I want to be with her all the time, and I've never really wanted to be around anyone that much. We just met a few days ago, and it's like we've known each other forever…" he broke off awkwardly.

Tendo looked like he was thinking very carefully about something, and Raleigh raised his eyebrows. "What?"

"Well…" Tendo began, trying to collect his thoughts. "There aren't a lot of documented cases of co-pilots becoming romantic with each other, given how many pairs are related to each other, but I wouldn't say that it's abnormal. As for the intensity, that's fairly common. Once you've been inside someone's head, you basically know everything about how they feel, to an extent. So instead of…I don't know, dating for a while and getting to know and like each other that way, you did it all at once in the Drift. Does that make sense?"

Raleigh nodded, feeling a little more at ease, and Tendo smiled.

"It's nice seeing you actually interested in someone. I think she's good for you. And you're good for her."

Raleigh looked away. "I'm not sure how good I am for her _now_ , after what Naomi did. I wouldn't blame Mako if she didn't want to be around me."

Tendo snorted. "Trust me, _nobody_ is going to believe that article. And even if they did, what would it matter? Even if she _did_ get chosen for the program because she slept with you-"

"We _didn't_ sleep together," Raleigh interjected angrily. "And even if we had, I had no authority to choose my co-pilot, anyway."

"I know that," Tendo said patiently. "But even if it _were_ true, what difference would it have made? The mission worked. You two succeeded where everyone else failed. Nobody is going to say that someone else should have been chosen after _that,_ because she was clearly the right person for the job. If you ask me, Naomi's article is going to backfire on her, and _hard_. You two are heroes, and I think if you end up wanting to be together, you'll just end up being the love story everyone wants to read about."

Tendo grinned, and Raleigh rolled his eyes but had to admit that Tendo had a point. Raleigh had been so full of rage at the article that he hadn't really stopped to think about it; but it _would_ reflect poorly on Naomi for making such accusations about one of the crew who had closed the Breach and ended the war. He almost smiled at the thought. He sighed, letting his rage slowly fizzle out bit by bit.

"You make a good point. Do you know when this meeting when the editor is happening? I'd really like to have a word with him and set the record straight myself."

Tendo looked like he didn't believe that for a second, but said, "Not that I would _ever_ tell you such information, but if I were to _guess_ , I might say that he'll be meeting Amelia in her office at 7 p.m. Hypothetically, of course."

He winked at Raleigh, then stood up. "Go find Mako. She may be upset now, but she'll feel better if you're there with her."

He took his tray and headed off to the return area, leaving Raleigh to consider everything they had discussed.

. . . . . . . .

He found her in the training room some time later, going to town on one of the punching bags that hung from the ceiling in the far corner of the room. Her hits were becoming sloppy, and he knew she had been at it long enough that she was starting to tire, likely not thinking straight anymore. He walked over to her, dragging his feet a bit so she would hear him coming and not be startled. He could feel her rage; it had dulled a bit due to the strenuous exercise, but it was still there, along with an undercurrent of sadness and shame. He felt like his heart was tearing, the pain from seeing her so upset was so great.

He walked up to her, and she stopped punching the bag to turn towards him. Her eyes were puffy, and he could tell that she had succumbed to her desire to cry alone for a while. She looked up at him, her expression unreadable, her breath coming in quick pants from the exertion of hitting the bag.

"Mako," he said, his voice quiet. "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn't upset Naomi yesterday she never would have dragged you into this. I never would have thought she would do anything like that to you. I...I'm so sorry."

His voice cracked at the end, and he tried to clear his throat before continuing.

"Amelia has already laid down the law with the magazine. Naomi is blacklisted from anything involving the Defense Corps. from now on, and Amelia is meeting with the magazine editor this evening to discuss the retraction and apology that they're going to publish tomorrow. I know it won't take back what she wrote, but they'll make it clear that it wasn't true…"

He broke off, wishing she would speak. She looked away from him, picking at her fingernails.

"Have a lot of people read it already?" she asked softly, sounding like she wasn't sure she wanted the answer.

"Amelia said that their circulation isn't very high for the print version of the magazine and that most of their readers use their website to read articles. Since she called the magazine shortly after the story went up, it was removed from their website before many people could read it there."

"I guess that's something…" Mako sighed, still not looking at him.

She folded her arms across her chest, looking equal parts fierce and vulnerable. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and show her that he could protect her. But given that this was partially his fault, that wasn't really true.

"It's not your fault," she said, talking to her shoes. "She would have done it anyway because you didn't want to take her back. Even if you were nicer to her, she would have written something horrible about you."

"Better something horrible about me than about you," Raleigh said, matching her quiet tone. "I never had much of a reputation to lose. Her saying those things about you, and about the Marshal favoring you, were unforgivable. I was going to go over to the magazine and kick the shit out of the editor for publishing it, but Amelia asked me not to do anything until she spoke with him."

A reluctant smile slid up her face at that declaration, because she knew he meant every word of it. She looked at him then, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve.

"Do you think I could come and help?"

Raleigh smiled and hesitantly placed a hand on her face, rubbing his thumb along her cheekbone, brushing away the last of the tears.

"I think so," he said, smiling down at her. "We both know you're a better fighter than me, anyway."

She leaned her face into his hand, closing her eyes and enjoying the contact despite still being upset at the situation.

"Those were really horrible things to say," she said quietly, and she felt Raleigh tense.

"Yes, they were." His voice was harsh. "I wouldn't have thought her capable of saying such awful things about someone she's never even spoken to…but I guess I was wrong. She was angrier with me than I thought, and she took it out on you. She knew I wouldn't care if she wrote horrible things about me, so she focused on you in order to get to me. I'm really sorry for dragging you into this, Mako."

"You can't control her behavior," she said quietly. "I just…I just hope people are smart enough not to believe it. I'm not sure…"

"I know," he said quietly. "Those close to you will know it's not true, and that's what matters."

Mako let out a small, humorless laugh. "There _aren't_ any people close to me," she said. "Aside from Herc, I guess. And now, you."

She blushed as though embarrassed by the admission, and Raleigh smiled.

"I guess it's the same for me. Good thing we have each other now." He paused, still stroking her cheek. "Do you want to keep hitting the bag? Or…I dunno. Go to the lounge and watch a movie, or something?"

Mako considered, then nodded slowly. "We can go watch a movie. I think I've done enough punching for now."

Raleigh smiled and turned towards the door, hesitating for a moment as he made to put an arm around her shoulders. Would she want him to keep his distance until the article gossip died down? She smiled sadly at him, but wrapped her arms around him in a hug, burying her face in his shirt. He gave her a gentle squeeze, surprised at how relieved he was that she still wanted to touch him. He rubbed her back and pressed his face into her hair as he felt her slowly relaxing into his arms, closing her eyes and listening to his heartbeat. They stood there for several minutes, feeling the negative feelings slowly fade away as they held each other. Eventually, Mako stood up straight, running a hand through her hair to straighten it out.

"Let's go. I can't remember the last time I watched a movie." Mako cocked her head to the side, thinking. "I can't even remember the last time I was in the lounge."

Raleigh laughed. "The lounge is right by your room, though. You never wanted to sit on a couch instead of your desk chair or hang out with the other Rangers?"

Mako shrugged, tugging his arm around her shoulders and heading for the door. "I guess I just always preferred to be by myself until I met you."

. . . . . . . .

A few minutes later, they walked into the large, open room that served as the lounge for this wing; it was basically a common room where people could congregate and socialize and use the television. Mako and Raleigh were the only Rangers with rooms in this particular hall now, so the room was empty apart from themselves. On the left side of the room, there were a couple of couches and chairs arranged around a large tv that was mounted on the wall, a DVD player on the cabinet beneath it, and a small coffee table in the middle. The other half of the room was made into a sort of kitchen; a small fridge, a set of cabinets with a white countertop that held a microwave and a toaster oven, along with a few snacks that someone must have left behind at some point. Raleigh walked over to the kitchen side of the room while Mako headed towards the tv, opening the drawer of the cabinet and pulling out some of the plastic cases that held movies. She wondered if any of them would play; people tended not to treat the common areas with much care, and she didn't expect much.

"Hey! There's popcorn!" Raleigh's voice sounded delighted as he called across the room to her. "Do you want some?"

Mako shrugged. "Okay."

It suddenly occurred to her that she had left her entire lunch behind when she ran out of the mess hall, and decided that something to eat would be a good idea. She looked through the stack of DVD cases she had pulled out, looking at the cover photos to see if anything looked worth watching. There were a few monster movies which she put back in the drawer, thinking that she'd had her fill of monsters for a while. She heard the popping sound from the microwave as she continued sifting through their options, eventually narrowing it down to three choices. A moment later, Raleigh came over carrying a large plastic bowl in one hand and two glass Coca-Cola bottles in his other hand.

"There was some Coke in the fridge!" he said, sounding delighted. "I haven't had any of this since before…before I went to the wall…"

He broke off and got that far away look that he got when he thought about his brother, but quickly shook his head like a dog shaking out wet fur. Mako smiled sadly up at him as she stood up, holding the movie choices.

"Did you find any good movies?" he asked, setting everything down on the coffee table in front of the couch.

Mako held up the three options for him to look at. "I don't know what these are about. But they look like they are probably funny movies instead of horror movies. I think I've had enough monsters for a while. What do you think?"

Raleigh grinned and pointed at the one in the middle. "Let's try that one. It if sucks, we can pick another."

Mako popped the DVD in the player and turned everything on, grabbing the remote and hitting "Play" as she sat down on the couch next to Raleigh, grabbing some popcorn from the bowl and tossing it into her mouth. He was sitting stiffly, still not sure if she wanted to be close to him, so she scooted over to sit right next to him, her leg right up against his. He hesitantly put his arm over her shoulders and she relaxed into him, sliding her arm over his stomach so she was cuddled up against him, taking advantage of his warmth. He reached forward and grabbed one of the Coke bottles, unscrewing the bottle and taking a sip.

He shuddered slightly as he swallowed and Mako looked up at him curiously.

"I haven't had anything to drink besides water and crappy beer for a long time," he said sheepishly. "I forgot how sweet this stuff is. Want a taste?" He dangled the bottle in front of her face in a teasing sort of way.

She hesitated but took the bottle and tipped it back, taking a small sip. He was right; it was incredibly sweet. She generally only drank water, so the amount of sugar was startling. It wasn't bad with the salty popcorn, though, she decided. She handed him the coke bottle and grabbed a few more pieces of popcorn, eating some and holding the last piece between her fingers.

"Want some popcorn?" she teased, holding the single piece up near his face.

She yelped as she suddenly felt his mouth on her hand, nibbling the popcorn and then sucking on her fingers. She heard him laugh at her indignation and wrinkled her nose at him as she felt his teeth grazing along her skin before he pulled away from her, grinning down at her.

"I just wanted a little taste…" he said, grinning.

He took her hand in his and held it up, kissing the fingers gently. "I hope I didn't bite you too hard…"

She felt a strange fluttering feeling in her stomach at the feel of his lips on her skin, even if he _was_ just teasing. She placed her arm back over his stomach, using him as a pillow as they watched the movie. She was feeling calmer now, relaxed by his presence and being away from anyone who would be watching them to try and judge whether the article was true. They watched the movie quietly, laughing occasionally but not talking until it was nearly over.

"You know," Raleigh said quietly. "I was talking to Tendo after you left the mess hall. He thinks that the article is going to backfire on Naomi, and that nobody would believe what she wrote. And that even if they did, it wouldn't matter because you saved the world and nobody would care even if we _had_ slept together. He thinks that if we…" he grew warm at this point, but pressed on, "If we decide to…become a couple, that people would think it was a great love story and forget all about the article anyway."

He said the last bit very fast, feeling a bit embarrassed. Mako was still, and he wondered whether he should have kept quiet about it.

"I guess…" Mako began, taking a deep breath. "I guess he's probably right. Maybe I overreacted-"

"No," Raleigh cut in. "You didn't overreact. At all. I'm still furious about it, and I have every intention of giving the editor a piece of my mind when he comes here to meet Amelia later. But I think Tendo is probably right in that nobody will believe her accusation, and even if they did, it wouldn't matter in the end anyway."

He stroked her hair and added quickly, "Of course, it matters to _me_ because I don't want anyone to think badly of you for any reason. But I think it's going to end up being worse for Naomi than for you."

Mako nodded into his chest, thinking it over. "You're probably right…can I come with you to see the editor?"

Raleigh cracked a smile and rubbed his nose against her hair. "Absolutely. But only if you'll let me watch if you decide to kick his ass."

Mako rolled her eyes and poked him in the side, smiling when he giggled.

. . . . . . . .

They stayed in the lounge until dinner; now that there were no missions to run or work to be done, there was nowhere that they really needed to be. For today, at least. They watched another movie, had some more popcorn, and snuggled together on the couch, happy to be away from prying eyes. Raleigh felt Mako's anxiety rising slowly as the time for dinner came nearer; they had spent the day distracting themselves from the potential problems that would be caused by Naomi's article, but the prospect of going into the crowded mess hall was not a pleasant one. Mako was sure that the magazine article would have made the rounds by now, and she wasn't looking forward to people looking at her like she was some sort of floozy.

She sighed as she put the movies away, turning of the tv and dvd player while Raleigh washed out the popcorn bowl and put the glass bottles in the recycling bin. Raleigh had said that not a lot of people bought the physical magazine, so it was unlikely that the story had spread too far, but she knew as well as anyone how quickly gossip traveled around a Shatterdome. She looked up at Raleigh as he joined her, ready to head down to dinner.

"You okay?" he asked, looking unsure. "We can go eat in the kitchen if you want."

Mako shrugged. "I'm not sure. I guess I'll see how many people stare at me on the way to the mess…"

She said the words slowly, and Raleigh could have sworn he heard a growl coming from her stomach.

"Yeah," he said, slinging his arm back around her shoulders. "Let's go. If we're lucky it might even be something edible tonight…though that chef _did_ say we could stop by the kitchen anytime…"

Mako rolled her eyes, knowing that Raleigh had every intention of going to the kitchens directly for dinner if they ever had unsatisfactory food in the mess hall.

"What?" Raleigh said. "It's easier to make good food for a couple of people than for a whole mess hall. No reason they can't whip us up something if we ask. What was the point of saving the world if we have to eat crappy food for the rest of our lives?"

He looked at her, doing his best to look scandalized, and she giggled as they walked out of the lounge and headed toward the mess hall.

They encountered very few people in the halls, which surprised them both; then again, now that the war was over and none of them really had a job to do, Raleigh supposed more people were venturing out to explore the city and get a taste of fresh air without the risk of Kaiju attack. Mako walked by his side, her arm brushing against his from time to time but never moving to hold his hand; he knew she wanted to as much as he did, but he knew she didn't want to lend any credence to Naomi's accusations and he respected her choice. There would be time for cuddling later, a thought which cheered him up considerably.

He saw a small smile creeping up her face at his thought, and he grinned in spite of himself as they came up to the mess hall doors. Mako peeked inside from the safety of the hallway, but appeared to decide there were not too many unfriendly glances coming their way, because she straightened her spine and walked in confidently, Raleigh on her heels. They felt the glances of the crowd that was already here for dinner, but nobody spoke to them as they filled their plates and water glasses. Mako sighed as she finished filling her cup, half wishing to make a run for it, but she steadied herself as she turned away from the serving area to look for an empty table.

She saw people whispering to each other as they watched her, but she didn't think any of them looked particularly malicious. She supposed she couldn't expect there to be no speculation at all; after all, nepotism was a serious charge; but she hoped that it wouldn't cross into rampant gossip territory. She held her head up and walked to a table toward the back of the room, Raleigh close behind her, and took a seat. He took the one next to her and grinned shyly as they both sat down, pulled their plates closer, and picked up their forks in one tandem movement. Mako shook her head but smiled in spite of herself as they began to eat in a comfortable, companionable silence.

. . . . . . . .

They hovered out of sight in the hallway, figuring they would give Amelia some time with the editor before they barged into the meeting. Raleigh saw Herc heading into the office, and he was fairly certain that Herc knew perfectly well that He and Mako were waiting down the hall. Herc's eyes flitted down in their direction, and he cleared his throat significantly before walking in the office, and Raleigh grinned down at Mako, taking her hand and guiding her down toward the office to wait outside it.

They couldn't hear exactly what was being said, but there were raised voices coming from each of the three people in the meeting for several minutes. Herc's voice boomed out, silencing any protests that had been coming from the editor's mouth. Things were quiet after that, and Raleigh assumed that they were having a more productive discussion at a normal volume. After several more minutes, the office door opened and Herc came out, looking utterly unsurprised to see them standing there.

"Well, he's agreed to our terms," Herc said without preamble. "Amelia insisted on a full retraction and apology to be published tomorrow, and Naomi's Shatterdome press corps. credentials have been stripped from her, effective immediately."

He paused, looking between Mako and Raleigh. "Is there anything you'd like to add? He's still in the office if you'd like to have a word with him."

He narrowed his eyes at Raleigh and added "A _word_ , Becket. Not a fight. He's already in hot water at the magazine; apparently, the publisher is on leave and the editor was filling in for him temporarily. The publisher was copied on the email that Amelia sent to complain about the article, and he is on his way back to deal with the situation. I don't envy the editor at this point. The amount of negative feedback that the magazine has received - both on their website and on social media- is rather astounding. I'll be very surprised if either this guy or the journalist have jobs once this is done."

Raleigh and Mako looked at each other and shrugged.

"I guess I don't really have anything to add," Mako said quietly, looking up at Raleigh, who looked back at Herc.

"Maybe you could tell him that Naomi wrote that article because she asked me to take her back the day before, and I refused."

Herc looked at him, surprised. "Take her back?"

"Yeah," Raleigh said darkly, rolling his eyes. "We dated briefly back when I started out as a pilot. But then I found out she was seeing my brother behind my back. Or maybe she was seeing _me_ behind _his_ back. Either way, it didn't end well."

He said it lightly, as if it was the least important fact in the world, and Herc raised his eyebrows.

"Well," Herc said slowly, "that does shed some light on the situation. Would you like to speak to him, or just let us handle it?"

Raleigh looked down at Mako. "I guess if his boss is going to handle it, there's not much I need to say."

Herc nodded slowly, glancing quickly between Raleigh and Mako as though trying to size them up.

"Okay, then," he said finally. "I'll let him know. We'll probably meet with the publisher at some point as well; no doubt he's scrambling for a way to come out ahead with this clusterfuck of a situation."

He shook his head darkly and Mako smiled, happy to see him irritated if it meant the crushing sadness over Chuck was being held at bay even temporarily. Herc nodded at the pair of them and then headed back into the office, closing the door behind him with a snap. Raleigh looked down at Mako then, eyebrows slightly raised.

"Are you sure you don't want to go smack him around a few times? I will do my best to hold Herc back so you have time to get a few punches in."

He grinned wickedly at her and she giggled, shaking her head and holding out her hand, taking his and leading him away from the office and towards the wing that held their quarters. It had been a pretty terrible day, but she supposed that tomorrow would be a fresh start with him by her side.

. . . . . . . .


End file.
